





\-W^:^ 








:Vi-, 



?:^ir:iPf^:;f;:: 




Class JH^ 
Book L_A. 



1^1/ 



(\f.y a^r^cL Uhd 



?5 *^^^ 



y^*-i 






TO my most patient reader and most charitable 
critic, my aged Mother, this volume is 
affectionately inscribed. 



BIOGRAPHICAL CRITICISM 

By BRANDER MATTHEWS 
Professor of Literature in Columbia University 



|T is a common delusion of those who discuss con- 
* temporary literature that there is such an entity 
as the ** reading public,*' possessed of a certain uni- 
formity of taste. There is not one public ; there are 
many publics, — as many in fact as there are different 
kinds of taste ; and the extent of an author's popu- 
larity is in proportion to the number of these separate 
publics he may chance to please. Scott, for ex- 
ample, appealed not only to those who relished 
romance and enjoyed excitement, but also to those 
who appreciated his honest portrayal of sturdy char- 
acters, Thackeray is preferred by ambitious youth 
who are insidiously flattered by his tacit compliment? 
to their knowledge of the world, by the disenchanted 
who cannot help seeing the petty meannesses of soci- 
ety, and by the less sophisticated in whom sentiment 



vi Biographical Criticism 

has not gone to seed in sentimentality. Dickens in 
his own day bid for the approval of those who liked 
broad caricature (and were therefore pleased with 
Stiggins and Chadband), of those who fed greedily 
on plentiful pathos (and were therefore delighted 
with the deathbeds of Smike and Paul Dombey and 
Little Nell) and also of those who asked for unex- 
pected adventure (and were therefore glad to dis- 
entangle the melodramatic intrigues of Ralph 
Nickleby). 

In like manner the American author who has 
chosen to call himself Mark Twain has attained to an 
immense popularity because the qualities he pos- 
sesses in a high degree appeal to so many and so 
widely varied publics, — first of all, no doubt, to the 
public that revels in hearty and robust fun, but also 
to the public which is glad to be swept along by the 
full current of adventure, which is sincerely touched 
by manly pathos, which is satisfied by vigorous and 
exact portrayal of character, and which respects 
shrewdness and wisdom and sanity and a healthy 
hatred of pretense and affectation and sham. Per- 
haps no one book of Mark Twain's — with the pos- 
sible exception of * Huckleberry Finn * — is equally a 
favorite with all his readers ; and perhaps some of 
his best characteristics are absent from his earlier 



Biographical Criticism ?ii 

books or but doubtfully latent in them Mark 
Twain is many-sided ; and he has ripened in knowl- 
edge and in power since he first attracted attention 
as a wild Western funny man. As he has grown 
older he has reflected more ; he has both broadened 
and deepened. The writer of *' comic copy " for a 
mining-camp newspaper has developed into a liberal 
humorist, handling life seriously and making his 
readers think as he makes them laugh, until to-day 
Mark Twain has perhaps the largest audience of any 
author now using the English language. To trace 
the stages of this evolution and to count the steps 
whereby the sage-brush reporter has risen to the rank 
of a writer of world-wide celebrity, is as interesting 
as it is instructive. 

I. 

Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born November 
30, 1835, ^t Florida, Missouri. His father was a 
merchant who had come from Tennessee and who 
removed soon after his son's birth to Hannibal, a 
little town on the Mississippi. What Hannibal was 
like and what were the circumstances of Mr. Clem- 
ens's boyhood we can see for ourselves in the con- 
vincing pages of * Tom Sawyer.* Mr. Hov/ells has 
called Hannibal ** a loafing, out-at-elbows, down-at- 
the-heels, slave-holding Mississippi town;*' and 



¥iilJ Biographical Criticism 

Mr. Clemens was himself a slave owner, who silently 
abhorred slavery. 

When the future author was but twelve his father 
died, and the son had to get his education as best 
he could. Of actual schooling he got little and of 
book-learning still less ; but life itself is not a bad 
teacher for a boy who wants to study, and young 
Clemens did not waste his chances. He spent three 
years in the printing office of the little local paper, 
— for, like not a few others on the list of American 
authors that stretches from Benjamin Franklin to 
William Dean Howells, he began his connection with 
literature by setting type. As a journeyman printer 
the lad wandered from town to town and rambled 
even as far east as New York. 

When he was seventeen he went back to the home 
of his boyhood resolved to become a pilot on the 
Mississippi. How he learnt the river he has told 
us in * Life on the Mississippi,* wherein his adven- 
tures, his experiences, and his impressions while he 
was a cub-pilot are recorded with a combination of 
precise veracity and abundant humor which makes 
the earlier chapters of that marvelous book a most 
masterly fragment of autobiography. The life of a 
pilot was full of interest and excitement and oppor- 
Itinity, and what young Clemens saw and heard and 



Biographical Criticism isi 

divined during the years when he was going up and 
down the mighty river we may read in the pages of 
Huckleberry Finn ' and * Pudd'nhead Wilson/ 
But toward the end of the fifties the railroads 
began to rob the river of its supremacy as a carrier ; 
and in the beginning of the sixties the civil war broke 
out and the Mississippi no longer went unvexed to 
the sea. The skill, slowly and laboriously acquired, 
was suddenly rendered useless, and at twenty-five the 
young man found himself bereft of his calling. As a 
border state, Missouri was sending her sons into the 
armies of the Union and into the armies of the Con- 
federacy, while many a man stood doubting, not 
knowing which way to turn* The ex-pilot has given 
us the record of his very brief and inglorious service 
as a soldier of the South. When this escapade was 
swiftly ended, he went to the Northwest with his 
brother, who had been appointed Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor of Nevada. Thus the man who had been born 
on the borderland of North and South, who had gone 
East as a jour-printer, who had been again and again 
up and down the Mississippi, now went West while he 
was still plastic and impressionable ; and he had thus 
another chance to increase that intimate knowledge 
of American life and American character which is 
one of the most precious of his possessions. 



X Biographical Criticism 

While still on the river he had written a satiric 
letter or two signed ** Mark Twain" — taking the 
name from a call of the man who heaves the 
lead and who cries ** By the mark, three,'* ** Mark 
twain," and so on. In Nevada he went to the 
mines and lived the life he has described in * Rough- 
ing It,' but when he failed to ** strike it rich," he 
naturally drifted into journalism and back into a 
newspaper office again. The Virginia City Enter^ 
prise was not overmanned, and the newcomer did all 
sorts of odd jobs, finding time now and then to write 
a sketch which seemed important enough to permit 
of his signature. The name of Mark Twain soon 
began to be known to those who were curious in 
newspaper humor. After a while he was drawn 
across the mountains to San Francisco, where he 
found casual employment on the Morning Cally and 
where he joined himself to a little group of aspiring 
literators which Included Mr. Bret Harte, Mr. Noah 
Brooks, Mr. Charles Henry Webb, and Mr. Charles 
Warren Stoddard. 

It was in 1867 that Mr. Webb published Mark 
Twain's first book, ' The Celebrated Jumping Frog 
of Calaveras * ; and it was in 1 867 that the proprie- 
tors of the Alta California supplied him with the 
funds necessary to enable him to become one of the 



Biographical Criticism zi 

passengers on the steamer Quaker Cityt which had 
been chartered to take a select party on what is now 
known as the Mediterranean trip. The weekly let- 
ters, in which he set forth what befel him on this 
journey, were printed in the Alta Sunday after Sun- 
day, and were copied freely by the other Californian 
papers. These letters served as the foundation of a 
book published in 1 869 and called * The Innocents 
Abroad,* a book which instantly brought to the 
author celebrity and cash. 

Both of these valuable aids to ambition were In- 
creased by his next step, his appearance on the 
lecture platform, Mr, Noah Brooks, who was 
present at his first attempt, has recorded that Mark 
Twain's ** method as a lecturer was distinctly unique 
and novel. His slow, deliberate drawl, the anxious 
and perturbed expression of his visage, the appar- 
ently painful effort with which he framed his sen- 
tences, the surprise that spread over his face when 
the audience roared with delight or rapturously ap- 
plauded the finer passages of his word-painting, were 
unlike anything of the kind they had ever known." 
In the thirty years since that first appearance the 
method has not changed, although it has probabJy 
matured. Mark Twain is one of the most effective 
of platform-speakers and one of the most artistic, 



xii Biog)iaphical Criticism 

with an art of his own which is very individual and 
very elaborate in spite of its seeming simplicity. 

Although he succeeded abundantly as a lecturer, 
and although he was the author of the most widely- 
circulated book of the decade, Mark Twain still 
thought of himself only as a journalist; and when 
he gave up the West for the East he became an 
editor of the Buffalo Express^ in which he had 
bought an interest. In 1 870 he married ; and it is 
perhaps not indiscreet to remark that his was 
another ot those happy unions of which there have 
been so many in the annals of American authorship- 
In 1 87 1 he removed to Hartford, where his home 
has been ever since ; and at the same time he gave 
up newspaper workc 

In 1872 he wrote * Roughing It,* and in the 
following year came his first sustained attempt 
at fiction i ' The Gilded Age,* written in collabora- 
tion with Mr, Charles Dudley Warner, The charac- 
ter of Colonel Mulberry Sellers Mark Twain soon 
took out of this book to make it the central figure 
of a play, which the late John T. Raymond acted 
hundreds of times throughout the United States, the 
playgoing public pardoning the inexpertness of the 
dramatist in favor of the delicious humor and the 
compelling veracity with which the chief character 



Biographical Criticism xiii 

was presented. So universal was this type and sc 
broadly recognizable its traits that there were few 
towns wherein the play was presented in which some- 
one did not accost the actor who impersonated the 
ever-hopeful schemer to declare, ** I'm the original 
oi Sellers f Didn't Mark ever tell you? Well, he 
took the Colo7iel from me ! " 

Encouraged by the welcome accorded to this first 
attempt at fiction, Mark Twain turned to the days 
of his boyhood and wrote *Tom Sawyer,* pub- 
lished in 1875. He also collected his sketches, scat- 
tered here and there in newspapers and magazines 
Toward the end of the seventies he went to Europe 
again with his family ; and the result of this journey 
is recorded in *A Tramp Abroad,* published ii? 
1880. Another volume of sketches, * The Stolen 
White Elephant,* was put forth in 1882; and in the 
same year Mark Twain first came forward as a his- 
torical novelist — if * The Prince and the Pauper' can 
fairly be called a historical novel. The year after, he 
sent forth the volume describing his * Life on the 
Mississippi * ; and in 1884 he followed this with the 
story in which that life has been crystallized forever, 
•Huckleberry Finn,* the finest of his books, the 
deepest in its insight, and the widest in its appeal. 

This Odyssey of the Mississippi was published by 



xiv Biographical Criticism 

a new firm, in which the author was a chief part- 
ner, just as Sir Walter Scott had been an associate 
of Ballantyne and Constable. There was at first 
a period of prosperity in which the house issued 
the * Personal Memoirs ' of Grant, giving his 
widow checks for $350,000 in 1886, and in which 
Mark Twain himself published * A Connecticut 
Yankee at King Arthur's Court,* a volume of 
' Merry Tales,* and a story called * The American 
Claimant,* wherein Colonel fellers XQdi^'^cdss, Then 
there came a succession of hard years ; and at last 
the publishing house in which Mark Twain was a 
partner failed, as the publishing house in which 
Walter Scott was a partner had formerly failed. The 
author of * Huckleberry Finn * was past sixty when 
he found himself suddenly saddled with a load of 
debt, just as the author of 'Waverley* had been 
burdened full threescore years earlier; and Mark 
Twain stood up stoutly under it as Scott had done 
before him. More fortunate than the Scotchman, 
the American has lived to pay the debt in full. 

Since the disheartening crash came, he has given 
to the public a third Mississippi River tale, * Pud* 
d'nhead Wilson,* issued in 1894; and a third his- 
torical novel * Joan of Arc,* a reverent and sym- 
pathetic study of the bravest figure in all French 



Biographical Criticism xv 

history, printed anonymously in Harper's Magazine 
and then in a volume acknowledged by the author in 
1896. As one of the results of a lecturing tour 
around the world he has prepared another volume of 
travels, * Following the Equator,* published toward 
the end of 1897c Mention must also be made of a 
fantastic tale called *Tom Sawyer Abroad,* sent 
forth in 1894, of a volume of sketches, *The Mil- 
lion Pound Bank-Note,* assembled in 1893, and also 
of a collection of literary essays, * How to Tell a 
Story,* published in 1897. 

This is but the barest outline of Mark Twain's life, 
— such a brief summary as we must have before us 
if we wish to consider the conditions under which the 
author has developed and the stages of his growth. 
It will serve, however, to show how various have 
been his forms of activit>' — printer, pilot, miner, 
journalist, traveler, lecturer, novelist, publisher — 
and to suggest the width of his experience of life, 

II 

A hum.orist is often without honor in his own 
country. Perhaps this is partly because humor is 
likely to be familiar, and familiarity breeds contempt, 
Perhaps it is partly because (for some strange 
reason) we tend to despise those who make us 



xvi BiOgraphial Criticism 

laugh f while we respect those who make us weep — 
forgetting that there are formulas for forcing tears 
quite as facile as the formulas for forcing smiles. 
Whatever the reason, the fact is indisputable that the 
humorist must pay the penalty of his humor; he 
must run the risk of being tolerated as a mere fun- 
maker, not to be taken seriously, and unworthy of 
critical consideration. This penalty is being paid 
now by Mark Twain. In many of the discussions 
of American literature he is dismissed as though 
he were only a competitor of his predecessors, 
Artemus Ward and John Phoenix, instead of being, 
what he is really, a writer who is to be classed — 
at whatever interval only time may decide — rather 
with Cervantes and Moli^re. 

Like the heroines of the problem-plays of the 
modern theater, Mark Twain has had to live down 
his past. His earlier writing gave but little promise 
of the enduring qualities obvious enough in his later 
works. Mr. Noah Brooks has told us how he was 
advised if he wished to ** see genuine specimens of 
American humor, frolicsome, extravagant, and auda- 
cious,** to look up the sketches which the then almost 
unknown Mark Twain was printing in a Nevada news- 
paper. The humor of Mark Twain is still American, 
still frolicsome, extravagant, and audacious; but it 



Biographical Criticism xvii 

is riper now and richer, and it has taken unto itself 
other qualities existing only in germ in these first- 
lings of his muse. The sketches in * The Jumping 
Frog * and the letters which made up * The Inno- 
cents Abroad * are ** comic copy,*' as the phrase is 
in newspaper offices — comic copy not altogether 
unlike what John Phoenix had written and Artemus 
Ward, better indeed than the work of these news- 
paper humorists (for Mark Twain had it in him to de 
velop as they did not), but not essentially dissimilar 
And in the eyes of many who do not think fot 
themselves, Mark Twain is only the author of these 
genuine specimens of American humor. For whcB. 
the public has once made up its mind about any 
man's work, it does not relish any attempt to forct 
it to unmake this opinion and to remake it Like 
other juries, it does not like to be ordered to recon 
sider its verdict as contrary to the facts of the case 
It IS always sluggish in beginning the necessary read 
justment, and not only sluggish, but somewhat 
grudging. Naturally it cannot help seeing the later 
works of a popular writer from the point of view it 
had to take to enjoy his earlier writings. And thus 
the author of * Huckleberry Finn * and ' Joan ol 
Arc ' is forced to Day a high price for the earlv and 
abundant popularity of * The Innocents Abroad. 



xviii Biographical Criticism 

No doubt, a few of his earlier sketches were inex- 
pensive in their elements; made of materials worn 
threadbare by generations of earlier funny men, they 
were sometimes cut in the pattern of his predeces- 
sors. No doubt, some of the earliest of all were 
crude and highly colored, and may even be called 
forced, not to say violent. No doubt, also, they 
did not suggest the seriousness and the melancholy 
which always must underlie the deepest humor, as 
we find it in Cervantes and Moli^re, in Swift and in 
Lowell. But even a careless reader, skipping 
through the book in idle amusement, ought to have 
been able to see in * The Innocents Abroad,* that 
the writer of that liveliest of books of travel was no 
mere merryandrew, grinning through a horse-collar 
to make sport for the groundlings ; but a sincere ob- 
server of life, seeing through his own eyes and set- 
ting down what he saw with abundant humor, of 
course, but also with profound respect for the eternal 
verities. 

George Eliot in one of her essays calls those who 
parody lofty themes *'debasers of the moral cur- 
rency/* Mark Twain is always an advocate of the 
sterling ethical standard. He is ready to overwhelm 
an affectation with irresistible laughter, but he never 
;acks reverence for the things that really deserve 



Biogtaphical Criticism xix 

reverence. It is not at the Old Masters that he 
scoffs in Italy, but rather at those who pay lip-ser- 
vice to things which they neither enjoy nor under- 
stand. For a ruin or a painting or a legend that 
does not seem to him to deserve the appreciation in 
which it is held he refuses to affect an admiration he 
does not feel; he cannot help being honest — he 
was born so. For meanness of all kinds he has a 
burning contempt; and on Abelard he pours out 
the vials of his wrath. He has a quick eye for all 
humbugs and a scorching scorn for them ; but there 
is no attempt at being funny in the manner of the 
cockney comedians when he stands in the awful 
presence of the Sphinx. He is not taken in by 
the glamour of Palestine ; he does not lose his head 
there; he keeps his feet; but he knows that he is 
standing on holy ground ; and there is never a hint 
of irreverence in his attitude, 

• A Tramp Abroad * is a better book than * The 
Innocents Abroad * ; it is quite as laughter-provok- 
ing, and its manner is far more restrained. Mark 
Twain was then master of his method, sure of him- 
self, secure of his popularity ; and he could do his 
best and spare no pains to be certain that it was his 
best. Perhaps there is a slight falling off in * Fol- 
lowing the Equator ' ; a trace of fatigue, of weari- 

B* 



aa Biographical Criticism 

ness, of disenchantment. But the last book of 
travels has passages as broadly humorous as any of 
the first; and it proves the author's possession of a 
pithy shrewdness not to be suspected from a perusal 
of its earliest predecessor. The first book was the 
work of a young fellow rejoicing in his own fun and 
resolved to make his readers laugh with him or at 
him ; the latest book is the work of an older man, 
who has found that life is not all laughter, but whose 
eye is as clear as ever and whose tongue is as plain- 
spoken. 

These three books of travel are like all other books 
of travel in that they relate in the first person what 
the author went forth to see. Autobiographic also 
are * Roughing It * and * Life on the Mississippi/ 
and they have always seemed to me better books 
than the more widely circulated travels. They are 
better because they are the result of a more intimate 
knowledge of the material dealt with. Every traveler 
is of necessity but a bird of passage ; he is a mere 
carpet-bagger; his acquaintance with the countries 
he visits is external only ; and this acquaintanceship 
is made only when he is a full-grown man. But 
Mark Twain's knowledge of the Mississippi was ac- 
quired in his youth; it was not purchased with a 
price ; it was his birthright ; and it was internal and 



Biographicai Criticism x« 

completCc And his knowledge ot the minhig-camp 
was achieved in early manhood when the mind ia 
open and sensitive to every new impression. There 
is in both these books a fidelity to the inner truths 
a certainty of touch, a sweep of vision, not to be 
found in the three books of travels. For my own 
part I have long thought that Mark Twain could 
securely rest his right to survive as an author or: 
those opening chapters in * Life on the Mississippi ^ 
in which he makes clear the difficulties, the seeming 
impossibilities, that fronted those who wished to 
learn the river. These chapters are bold and bril- 
liant ; and they picture for us forever a period and 3 
set of conditions^ singularly interesting and splen 
didly varied, that otherwise would have had tc forego 
all adequate record 

m. 

It is highly probable that when an author reveals 
the power of evoking viev/s of places and of calling 
up portraits of people such as Mark Twain showed 
m * Life on the Mississippi,* and when he has the 
masculine grasp of reality Mark Twain made evident 
in Roughing It,' he must needs sooner or later 
turn from mere fact to avowed fiction and become a< 
story-teller. The iong stones 'vhicb Mark Twam 
has written fall into two divisions, ~ first, those of 



zzii Biographical Criticism 

which the scene is laid in the present, in reality* and 
mostly in the Mississippi Valley, and second, those 
of which the scene is laid in the past, in fantasy 
mostly, and in Europe. 

As my own liking is a little less for the latter 
group, there is no need for me now to linger over 
them. In writing these tales of the past Mark Twain 
was making up stories in his head ; personally I pre- 
fer the tales of his in which he has his foot firm on 
reality. *The Prince and the Pauper* has the 
essence of boyhood in it ; it has variety and vigor ; 
it has abundant humor and plentiful pathos ; and yet 
I for one w^ould give the whole of it for the single 
chapter in which Tom Sawyer lets the contract for 
whitewashing his aunt's fence. 

Mr. Howells has declared that there are two kinds 
of fiction he likes almost equally well, — *'a real 
giovel and a pure romance; *' and he joyfully accepts 
A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court ' 
as "'one of the greatest romances ever imagined." 
It is a humorous romance overflowing with stalwart 
fun; and it is not irreverent but iconoclastic, in that 
it breaks not a few disestablished idols. It is in- 
tensely American and intensely nineteenth century 
and intensely democratic — in the best sense of that 
abused adjective. The British critics were greatly 



Biographical Criticism xxiii 

displeased with the book; — and we are reminded of 
the fact that the Spanish still somewhat resent * Don 
Quixote ' because it brings out too truthfully the 
fatal gap in the Spanish character between the ideal 
and the real. So much of the feudal still survives in 
British society that Mark Twain*s merry and eluci- 
dating assault on the past seemed to some almost an 
insult to the present. 

But no critic, British or American, has ventured to 
discover any irreverence in * Joan of Arc,* wherein 
indeed the tone is almost devout and the humor 
almost too much subdued. Perhaps it is my own 
distrust of the so-called historical novel, my own dis- 
belief that it can ever be anything but an inferior 
form of art, which makes me care less for this worthy 
effort to honor a noble figure. And elevated and 
dignified as is the ' Joan of Arc,* I do not think 
that it shows us Mark Twain at his best ; although it 
has many a passage that only he could have written, 
it is perhaps the least characteristic of his works. 
Yet it may well be that the certain measure of success 
he has achieved in handling a subject so lofty and so 
serious, will help to open the eyes of the public to 
see the solid merits of his other stories, in which his 
humor has fuller play and in which his natural gifts 
are more abundantly displayed. 



sxiv B:ographica; Criticism 

Oi these other stories three are " real novels,*' to 
wse Mr. Howelis's phrase; they are novels as real 
as any in any literature. * Tom Sawyer * and 
* Huckleberry Finn ' and ' Pudd*nhead Wilson * 
are invaluable contributions to American literature 
-—for American literature is nothing if it is not a 
'true picture of American life and if it does not help 
tis to understand ourselves. ' Huckleberry Finn * is 
a very amusing volume, and a generation has read 
Its pages and laughed over it immoderately ; but it 
is very much more than a funny book; it is a 
marvelously accurate portrayal of a whole civilization. 
Mr. Ormsby, in an essay which accompanies his 
translation of ' Don Quixote,* has pointed out that 
for a full century after its publication that greatest of 
novels was enjoyed chiefly as a tale of humorous mis- 
adventure, and that three generations had laughed 
over it before anybody suspected that it was more 
than a mere funny book. It is perhaps rather with 
the picaresque romances of Spain that * Huckleberry 
Finn * is to be compared than with the masterpiece 
of Cervantes ; but I do not think it will be a century 
or take three generations before we Americans gen- 
erally discover how great a book * Huckleberry 
Finn * really is, how keen Its vision of character, 
how close its observation of life, how sound its 



Biographical Criticism xxy 

philosophy, and how it records for us once and for 
all certain phases of Southwestern society which it is 
most important for us to perceive and to understand. 
The influence of slavery, the prevalence of feuds, 
the conditions and the circumstances that make 
lynching possible —■ all these things are set before us 
clearly and without comment. It is for us to draw 
our own moral, each for himself, as we do when we 
see Shakespeare acted. 

• Huckleberry Finn,' in its art, for one thing, 
and also in its broader range, is superior to ' Tom 
Sawyer* and to * Pudd'nhead Wilson,* fine as both 
these are In their several ways. In no book in our 
language, to my mind, has the boy, simply as a boy, 
been better realized than in *Tom Sawyer.* In 
some respects * Pudd'nhead Wilson * is the most dra- 
matic of Mark Twain's longer stories, and also the 
most ingenious ; like * Tom Sawyer * and * Huckle- 
berry Finn,' it has the full flavor of the Mississippi 
River, on which its author spent his own boyhood; 
and from contact with the soil of which he alwayfj 
rises reinvigo rated. 

It is by these three stories, and especially by 
' Huckleberry Finn," that Mark Twain is likely to 
live longest. Nowhere else is the life of the Missis- 
sippi Valley so truthfully recorded Nowhere elsf^ 



xxvi Biographical Criticism 

can we find a gallery of Southwestern characters as 
varied and as veracious as those Huck Finn met in 
his wanderings. The histories of literature all praise 
the * Gil Bias * of Le Sage for its amusing adven- 
tures, its natural characters, its pleasant humor, and 
its insight into human frailty ; and the praise is de- 
served. But in every one of these qualities * Huckle- 
berry Finn' is superior to 'Gil Bias.* Le Sage 
set the model of the picaresque novel, and Mark 
Twain followed his example; but the American 
book is richer than the French — deeper, finer, 
stronger. It would be hard to find in any language 
better specimens of pure narrative, better examples 
of the power of telling a story and of calling up 
action so that the reader cannot help but see it, than 
Mark Twain's account of the Shepherdson-Granger- 
ford feud, and his description of the shooting of 
Boggs by Sherburn and of the foiled attempt to 
lynch Sherburn afterward. 

These scenes, fine as they are, vivid, powerful, 
and most artistic in their restraint, can be matched 
in the two other books. In * Tom Sawyer * they 
can be paralleled by the chapter in which the boy and 
the girl are lost in the cave, and Tom, seeing a gleam 
of light in the distance, discovers that it is a candle 
carried by Indian Joe, the one enemy he has in the 



Biographical Criticism xxvt 

world. In ' Pudd'nhead Wilson * the great passages 
of ' Huckleberry Finn ' are rivaled by that most 
pathetic account of the weak son willing to sell his 
own mother as a slave ** down the river. ** Although 
no one of the books is sustained throughout on this 
high level, and although, in truth, there are in each of 
them passages here and there that we could wish away 
(because they are not worthy of the association in 
which we find them), I have no hesitation in express- 
ing here my own conviction that the man who has 
given us four scenes like these is to be compared 
with the masters of literature ; and that he can abide 
the comparison with equanimity. 

Perhaps 1 myself prefer these three Mississippi 

Valley books above all Mark Twain's other writings 
(although with no lack of affection for those also) 
partly because these have the most of the flavor of 
the soil about them. After veracity and the sense 
of the universal, what I best relish in literature is this 
native aroma, pungent, homely, and abiding. Yet 
I feel sure that I should not rate him so high if 
he were the author of these three books only. They 
are the best of him, but the others are good also, 
and good in a different way. Other writers have 



KsviH Biographicai Ciriticism 

given ti£ this local colosr more or kss artistically, 
more or less convincingly^ one New England and 
anothex New York^ a third Virginia, and a fourth 
^Georgia.: and a fifth Wisconsin ; but who so well as 
Mark Twain has given us the full spectrum of the 
Union? With all his exactness in reproducing the 
Mississippi; Valley, Mark Twain is not sectional in 
hx3 outlook ; he Is national alwayse He is not narrow ; 
lie m not Western or Eastern ; he is American with 
E certain largeness and boldness and freedom and cer- 
tainty that we like to think 6i as befitting a country 
'm vast as ours and a people so independent 

Xn Mark Twain we have ''the national spirit as 
^$een wj.th our own eyes/' declared Mr, Howells; 
andp from more points of view than one, Mark Twain 
seems to me to be the very embodiment of Ameri- 
canism Self-educated in the hard school of life, he 
has gone on broadening his outlook as he has grown 
older. Spending many years abroad, he has come 
to understand other nationalities, without enfeebling 
his own native faiths Combining a mastery of the 
commonplace with an imaginative faculty, he is a 
practical idealist. No respecter of persons, he has a 
tender regard for his fellow maUo Irreverent toward 
all outworn superstitions, he has ever revealed the 
deepest respect for all things truly worthy of rever- 



Biographical Crmcism xxin 

ence. Unwilling to take pay in words, he is im- 
patient always to get at the root of the matter, to 
pierce to the center, to see tlie thing as it is. He 
has a habit of standing upright, of thinking for him- 
self, and of hitting hard at whatsoever seems to him 
hateful and mean : but at the core of him there is 
genuine gentleness and honest sympathy, brave 
humanity and sweet kindliness. Perhaps it is boast- 
ful for us to think that these characteristics which we 
see in Mark Twain are characteristics also of the 
American people as a whole ; but it is pleasant to 
think so. 

Mark Twain has the very marrow of Americanism. 
He is as intensely and as typically American as 
Franklin or Emerson or Hawthorne. He has not a 
little of the shrewd common sense and the homely 
and unliterary directness of Franklin. He is not 
without a share of the aspiration and the elevation 
of Emerson ; and he has a philosophy of his own as 
optimistic as Emerson*s. He possesses also some- 
what of Hawthorne's interest in ethical problems 
with something of the same power of getting at the 
heart of them ; he, too, has written his parables and 
apologues wherein the moral is obvious and an- 
obtruded. He is uncompromisingly honest; and to 
conscience is as rugged as his style sometimes is. 

'3 



XXX Biographical Criticism 

No American author has to-day at his command a 
style more nervous, more varied, more flexible, or 
more various than Mark Twain's. His colloquial 
ease should not hide from us his mastery of all the 
devices of rhetoric. He may seem to disobey the 
letter of the law sometimes, but he is always obedient 
to the spirit. He never speaks unless he has some- 
thing to say; and then he says it tersely, sharply, 
with a freshness of epithet and an individuality of 
phrase, always accurate however unacademic. His 
vocabulary is enormous, and it is deficient only in 
the dead words; his language is alive always, and 
actually tingling with vitality. He rejoices in the 
daring noun and in the audacious adjective. His in- 
stinct for the exact word is not always unerring, and 
now and again he has failed to exercise it ; but there 
is in his prose none of the flatting and sharping he 
censured in Fenimore Cooper's. His style has 
none of the cold perfection of an antique statue ; it is 
too modern and too American for that, and too com- 
pletely the expression of the man himself, sincere 
and straightforward. It is not free from slang, 
although this is far less frequent than one might ex- 
pect; but it does its work swiftly and cleanly. And 
It is capable of immense variety. Consider the tale 
of the BIu^ Jay in * A Tramp Abroad/ wherein the 



Biographical Criticism xxxi 

humor is sustained by unstated pathos ; what could 
be better told than this, with every word the right 
word and in the right place? And take Huck Finn's 
description of the storm when he was alone on the 
island, which is in dialect, which will not parse, which 
bristles with double negatives, but which none the 
less is one of the finest passages of descriptive prose 
in all American literature. 

V. 

After all, it is as a humorist pure and simple that 
Mark Twain is best known and best beloved. In 
the preceding pages I have tried to point out the 
several ways in which he transcends humor, as the 
word is commonly restricted, and to show that he is 
no mere fun-maker. But he is a fun-maker beyond 
all question, and he has made millions laugh as no 
other man of our century has done. The laughter 
he has aroused is wholesome and self-respecting; it 
clears the atmosphere. For this we cannot but be 
grateful. As Lowell said, " let us not be ashamed 
to confess that, if we find the tragedy a bore, we 
take the profoundest satisfaction in the farce. It is 
a mark of sanity." There is no laughter in Don 
Quixote^ the noble enthusiast whose wits are un- 
settled ; and there is little on the lips of Alceste the 
3 



^xm Biographical Criticism 

misanthrope of Moli^re; but for both of them life 
would have been easier had they known how to 
laugh, Cervantes himself, and Moli^re also, found 
relief in laughter for their melancholy ; and it was 
the sense of humor which kept them tolerantly inter- 
ested in the spectacle of humanity, although life had 
pressed hardly on them both. On Mark Twain also 
life has left its scars; but he has bound up his 
wounds and battled forward with a stout heart, as 
Cervantes did, and Moli^re. It was Moli^re who 
declared that it was a strange business to undertake 
to make people laugh; but even now, after two 
centuries, when the best of Moli^re's plays are acted^ 
mirth breaks out again and laughter overflows.. 

It would be doing Mark Twain a disservice to liken 
him to Moli^re, the greatest comic dramatist of all 
time ; and yet there is more than one point of sim« 
ilarity. Just as Mark Twain began by writing comic 
copy which contained no prophecy of a master- 
piece like ' Huckleberry Finn/ so Moli^re was at 
first the author only of semi-acrobatic farces on the 
Italian model in no wise presaging * Tartuffe * and 
• The Misanthrope/ Just as Moli^re succeeded first 
of all in pleasing the broad public that likes robust 
fun, and then slowly and step by step developed into 
a dramatist who set on the stage enduring figures 



Biographical Criticism xxxiii 

plucked out of the abounding h'fe about him, so 
also has Mark Twain grown, ascending from 
The Jumping Frog * to ' Huckleberry Finn,* as 
comic as its elder brother and as laughter-provoking, 
but charged also with meaning and with philosophy. 
And like Moliere again, Mark Twain has kept solid 
hold of the material world ; his doctrine is not of the 
earth earthy, but it is never sublimated into senti- 
mentality. He sympathizes with the spiritual side 
of humanity, while never ignoring the sensual. 
Like Moliere, Mark Twain takes his stand on com- 
mon sense and thinks scorn of affectation of every 
sort. He understands sinners and strugglers and 
weaklings ; and he is not harsh with them, reserving 
his scorching hatred for hypocrites and pretenders 
and frauds. 

At how long an interval Mark Twain shall be rated 
after Moliere and Cervantes it is for the future to 
declare. All that we can see clearly now is that it is 
with them that he is to be classed, — with Moliere 
and Cervantes, with Chaucer and Fielding, humorists 
all of them, and all of them manly men. 



PREFACE 



This book is a record of a pleasure trip. If It 
were a record of a solemn scientific expedition, it 
would have about it that gravity, that profundity^ 
and that impressive incomprehensibility which are 
so proper to works of that kind, and withal so attrac- 
tive. Yet notwithstanding it is only a record of a 
picnic, it has a purpose, which is, to suggest to the 
reader how he would be likely to see Europe and the 
East if he looked at them with his own eyes instead 
of the eyes of those who traveled in those countries 
before him. I make small pretence of showing any 
one how he ought to look at objects of interest be- 
yond the sea — other books do that, and therefore, 
even if I were competent to do it, there is no need, 

I offer no apologies for any departures from the 
usual style of travel-writing that may be charged 
against me — for I think I have seen with impartial 
eyes, and I am sure I have written at least honestly, 
whether wisely or not. 

In this volume I have used portions of letters which 
I wrote for the Daily Alta California^ of San Fran- 

( xxxvii) 



Preface 

rtisco, the proprietors of that journal having waived 
their rights and given me the necessary permission, 

I have also inserted portions of several letters 
written for the New York Tribune and the New York 
Herald, 

THE AUTHOR. 

San Francisco 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



PORTRAITS, 1853, 1868 Frontispiece 



THE DAME LOOKED PERPLEXED . Peter NeweU . . 139 
♦'IS HE DEAD?" • • . . . Peter NeweU . . 372 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
FcpuIarTalk of the Excursion — Programme of the Trip — Duly 
Ticketed for the Excursion — Defection of the Celebrities . . 45 

CHAPTER II. 
Grand Preparations — An Imposing Dignitary — The European 
Exodus — ^Mr. Blucher's Opinion — Stateroom No. 10 —The 
Assembling of the Qans — At Sea at Last ...«.»• 54 

CHAPTER III. 
** Averaging" the Passengers — "Far, far at Sea" — Tribulation 
among the Patriarchs — Seeking Amusement under Difficulties 
; — Five Captains in the Ship . . . . ^ o . , . . 60 

CHAPTER IV. 
Pflgrim Life at Sea — The " Synagogue " — Jack's ** Journal " — ■ 
The "Q. C. Qub" —State Ball on Deck — Mock Trials — 
Pilgrim Solemni^ — Executive Officer Dehvers an Opinion . 66 

CHAPTER V. 
An Eccentric Moon — The Mystery of "ShipThne" — The Deni- 
zens of the Deep — The First Landing on a Foreign Shore — 
The Azores Islands — Blucher's Disastrous Dinner , , ^ ^ J^ 

CHAPTER VI.' 
A Fossil Community — Curious Ways and Customs ^ — Jesuit Hum* 
buggery — Fantastic Pilgrimizing — Origin of the Russ Pave- 
ment — Squaring Accounts with the Fossils — At Sea Again ^ 86 

(sli) 



Contents 

CHAPTER VII. 
Spain and Africa on Exhibition — The Pillars of Hercules — The 
Rock of Gibraltar— *' The Queen's Chair "— A Private Frolic 
in Africa — Disembarking in the Empire of Morocco • • . 95 

CHAPTER Vni. 
The Ancient City of Tangier, Morocco — Strange Sights — A Cradle 
of Antiquity — We Become Wealthy — How They Rob the Mail 
in Africa— -Danger of being Opulent in Morocco 1 13 

CHAPTER IX. 
A Pilgrim in Deadly Peril — How They Mended the Qock — 
Moorish Punishments for Crime — Shrewdness of Mohamme- 
dan Pilgrims — Reverence for Cats — Bliss of being a Consul- 
General »«.o. .•.•.•«...., 121 

CHAPTfiR X. 
A Mediterranean Sunset — The "Oracle" is Delivered of an Opin- 
ion — France in Sight — The Ignorant Native — In Marseilles 
— Lost in the Great City — A Frenchy Scene o • •> . * 1 30 

CHAPTER XI. 
Getting "Used to it"-— No Soap— Table d'hote — A Curious 
Discovery — The "Pilgrim" Bird — A Long Captivity — Some 
of Dumas' Heroes — Dungeon of the Famous " Iron Mask " 140 

CHAPTER XII. 
A Holiday Flight through France — Peculiarities of French Cars — 
Why there are no Accidents — The " Old Travelers "*— Still 
an the Wing — Paris at Last — Seeing the Sights . • . .148 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Monsieur Billfinger — Re-christening the Frenchman — In the 
Clutches of a Paris Guide — The International Exposition — 
Military Review — Napoleon and the Sultan of Turkey • • .163 

CHAPTER XIV. 
The Cathedral of Notre-Dame — Treasures and Sacred Relics — 
The Morgue — The Outrageous Can-can — The Louvre Pal- 
ace — The Great Park — Preservation of Noted Things . . -277 



Contents 

CHAPTER XV. 

French National Burying-ground — The Story of Abelard and 
Heloise — '* English Spoken Here " — Imperial Honors to an 
American— The Over-estimated Grisette — Leaving Paris . • |88 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Versailles — Paradise Regained — A Wonderful Park — Paradise 
Lost — Napoleonic Strategy .««•>•><««• 204 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Italy in Sight — The " City of Palaces " — Beauty of the Genoese 
Women — Gifted Guide — Church Magnificence — How the 
Genoese Live — Massive Architecture — Graves for 60,000 • 21 x 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Flying through Italy — Marengo — Some Wonders of the Famous 
Cathedral — An Unpleasant Adventure — Tons of Golrl and 
Silver — Holy Relics — Solomon's Temple Rivaled ^ • ■> 225 

CHAPTER XIX. 

La Scala — Ingenious Frescoes — Ancient Roman Amphitheater — 
The Chief Charm of European Life — An Italian Bath — The 
Most Celebrated Paintmg in the World — A Kiss for a Franc • 237 

CHAPTER XX. 

Rural Italy by Rail — Fumigated, According to Law — The Sor* 
rowing Englishman — The Famous Lake Como — Its Scenery 
— Como Compared with Tahoe — Meeting a Shipmate . . 256 

CHAPTER XXI. 

The Pretty Lago di Lecco — A Carriage Drive in the Country — A 
Sleepy Land — Bloody Shrines — The Heart and Home of 
Priestcraft -— Birthplace of Harlequin — Approaching Venice . 266 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Night in Venice —The ♦* Gay Gondolier *» — The Grand Fete by 
Moonlight — The Notable Sights of Venice — The Mother of 
the Republics Desolate c . o . . . r. o o -. ^ 278 



Contents 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

The Famous Gondola — Great Square of St. Mark and Winged 
Lion — Snobs, at Home and Abroad — Sepulchres of the Great 
Dead —A Tilt at the " Old Masters " — Moving Again • . 293 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

rhrough Italy by Rail — Idling in Florence — Wonderful Mossdcs — 
Tower of Pisa — Ancient Duomo — The Original Pendulmn — 
A New Holy Sepulchre — Leghorn — Gen. Garibaldi • . . 312 

CHAFrER XXV. 

Railway Grandeur — The oumptuousness of Mother Church — Mag- 
nificence and Misery— General Execration— A Good Word 
for the Priests — Civjta Vecchia the Dismal — Off for Rome . 325 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

The Grandeu* of IL Peter's — Holy Relics — Grand View from the 
Dome — llic Holy Inquisition — Monkish Frauds — The Coli- 
sewi>— Apcient Plav-bill of a Coliseum Performance . » • 338 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

*• Sutche^^ to Make a Roman Holiday " — An Exasperating Sub- 
iect— Asinine Guides — The Roman Catacombs — The Saint 
ytbo Buist his Kibs — Miracle of the Bleeding Heart . . • 3^1 






THE INNOCENTS ABROAD 



\ 



CHAPTER L 

rR months the great Pleasure Excursion to 
Europe and the Holy Land was chatted about 
in the newspapers everywhere in America, and dis- 
cussed at countless firesides. It was a novelty in the 
way of excursions — its like had not been thought 
of before, and it compelled that interest which attrac- 
tive novelties always command. It was to be a pic- 
nic on a gigantic scale. The participants in it, in- 
stead 01 freighting an ungainly steam ferry-boat with 
youth and beauty and pies and doughnuts, and pad« 
dling up some obscure creek to disembark upon a 
grassy lawn and wear themselves out with a long 
summer day*s laborious frolicking under the impres- 
sion that it was fun, were to sail away in a great 
steamship with flags flying and cannon pealing, and 
take a royal holiday beyond tlie broad ocean, m 
many a strange clime and in many a land renowned 
in history ! They were to sail for months over the 
breezy Atlantic and the sunny Mediterranean ; they 
were to scamper about the decks by day, filling the 
ship with shouts and laughter — or read novels and 
poetry in the shade of the smoke-stacks, or watch 
4 (45) 



46 The innocents Abroad 

for the jelly-fish and the nautilus, over the side, and 
the shark, the whale, and other strange monsters of 
the deep ; and at night they were to dance in the 
open air, on the upper deck, in the midst of a ball- 
room that stretched from horizon to horizon, and 
was domed by the bending heavens and lighted by 
no meaner lamps than the stars and tlie magnificent 
moon — dance, and promenade, and smoke, and 
smg, and make love, and search the skies for con- 
stellations that never associate with the **Big 
Dipper'* they were so tired of : and they were to 
see the ships of twenty navies — the customs and 
costumes of twenty curious peoples — the great 
cities of half a world — they were to hobnob with 
nobility and hold friendly converse with kings and 
princeSf Grand Moguls, and the anointed lords of 
mighty empires ! 

It was a brave conception ; it was the offspring of 
a most ingenious brain. It was well advertised, but 
it hardly needed it: the bold originality, the extraor- 
dinary character, the seductive nature, and the 
vastness of the enterprise provoked comment every- 
where and advertised it in every household in the 
land. Who could read the program of the excur- 
sion without longing to make one of the party? I 
will insert it here. It is almost as good as a map. 
As a text for this book, nothing could be betters 



The Innocents Abroad 47 

EXCURSION TO THE HOLY LAND, EGYPT, THE CRIMEA, 
GREECE, AND INTERMEDIATE POINTS OF INTEREST. 

Brooklyn, February jst, 1867, 

The undersigned will make an excursion as above during the coming 
season, and begs to submit to you the following programme : 

A first-class steamer, to be under his own command, and capable of 
accommodating at least one hundred and fifty cabin passengers, will be 
selected, in which wiU be taken a select company, numbering not more 
than three-fourths of the ship's capacity. There is good reason to 
believe that this company can be easily made up in this immediate 
vicinity, of mutual friends and acquaintances. 

The steamer will be provided with every necessary comfort, includ- 
ing library and musical instruments. 

An experienced physician will be on board. 

Leaving New York about June 1st, a middle and pleasant route will 
be taken across the Atlantic, and, passing through the group of Azores, 
St. Michael will be reached in about ten days. A day or two will be 
spent here, enjoying the fruit and wild scenery of these islands, and the 
voyage continued, and Gibraltar reached in three or four days. 

A day or two will be spent here in looking over the wonderful sub- 
terraneous fortifications, permission to visit these galleries being readily 
obtained. 

From Gibraltar, running along the coasts of Spain and France, 
Marseilles will be reached in three days. Here ample time will be given 
not only to look over the city, which was founded six hundred years 
before the Christian era, and its artificial port, the finest of the kind in 
the Mediterranean, but to visit Paris during the Great Exhibition ; and 
the beautiful city of Lyons, lying intermediate, from the heights of 
which, on a clear day, Mont Blanc and the Alps can be distinctly seen. 
Passengers who may wish to extend the time at Paris can do so, and, 
passing dovm through Switzerland, rejoin the steamer at Genoa. 

From Marseilles to Genoa is a run of one night. The excursionists 
will have an opportunity to look over this, the ''magnificent city of 
palaces," and visit the birthplace of Columbus, twelve miles off, over a 
beautiful road built by Napoleon I. From this point, excursions may 
be made to Milan, Lakes Como and Maggiore, or to Milan, Verona 
(famous for its extraordinary fortifications), Padua, and Venice. Or, i! 
passengers desire to visit Pal.taa (famous for Correggio's frescoes) and 



48 The Innocents Abroad 

Bologna, they can by rail go on to Florence, and rejoin the steamer at 
Leghorn, thus spending about three weeks amid the cities most famous 
for art in Italy. 

From Genoa the rim to Leghorn will be made along the coast in one 
night, and time appropriated to this point in which to visit Florence, its 
palaces and galleries; Pisa, its Cathedral and "Leaning Tower," and 
Lucca and its baths and Roman amphitheater; Florence, the most 
remote, being distant by rail about sixty miles. 

From Leghorn to Naples (calling at Civita Vecchia to land any who 
may prefer to go to Rome from that point) the distance will be made in 
about thirty-six hours ; the route will lay along the coast of Italy, close 
by Caprera, Elba, and Corsica. Arrangements have been made to take 
on board at Leghorn a pilot for Caprera, and, if practicable, a call will 
be made there to visit the home of Garibaldi. 

Rome (by rail), Herculaneum, Pompeii, Vesuvius, Virgil's tomb, 
and possibly, the ruins of Psestum, can be visited, as well as the beauti- 
ful surroundings of Naples and its charming bay. 

The next point of interest will be Palermo, the most beautiful city of 
Sicily, which will be reached in one night from Naples. A day wall be 
spent here, and, leaving in the evening, the course will be taken towards 
Athens. 

Skirting along the north coast of Sicily, passing through the group 
of yEolian Isles, in sight of Stromboli and Vulcania, both active volca- 
noes, through the Straits of Messina, with "Scylla" on the one hand 
and "Charybdis" on the other, along the east coast of Sicily, and in 
sight of Mount ^Etna, along the south coast of Italy, the west and south 
coast of Greece, in sight of ancient Crete, up Athens Gulf, and into the 
Pirseus, Athens wiU be reached in two and a half or three days. After 
tarrying here awhile, the Bay of Salamis will be crossed, and a day given 
to Corinth, whence the voyage will be continued to Constantinople, 
passing on the way through the Grecian Archipelago, the Dardanelles, 
the Sea of Marmora, and the mouth of the Golden Horn, and arri^dng 
in about forty-eight hours from Athens. 

After leaving Constantinople, the way will be taken out through the 
beautiful Bosphorus, across the Black Sea to Sebastopol and Balaklava, 
a run of about twenty-four hours. Here it is proposed to remain two 
days, visiting the harbors, fortifications, and battlefields of the Crimea ; 
thence back through the Bosphorus, touching at Constantinople to take 
i-"^ any who may have preferred to remain there ; down through the Sea 



The Innocents Abroad 49 

of Marmora and the Dardanelles, along the coasts of ancient Troy and 
Lydia in Asia, to Smyrna, which will be reached in two or two and a half 
days from Constantinople. A sufficient stay will be made here to give 
opportunity of visiting Ephesus, fifty miles distant by rail. 

From Smyrna towards the Holy Land the course will lay through the 
Grecian Archipelago, close by the Isle of Patmos, along the coast of 
Asia, ancient Pamphylia, and the Isle of Cyprus. Beirout will be reached 
in three days. At Beirout time will be given to visit Damascus ; after 
which the steamer will proceed to Joppa. 

From Joppa, Jerusalem, the River Jordan, the Sea of Tiberias, 
Nazareth, Bethany, Bethlehem, and other points of interest in the Holy 
Land can be visited, and here those who may have preferred to make 
the journey from Beirout through the country, passing through Damas- 
cus, Galilee, Capernaum, Samaria, and by the River Jordan and Sea of 
Tiberias, can rejoin the steamer. 

Leaving Joppa, the next point of interest to visit will be Alexandria, 
which will be reached in twenty-four hours. The ruins of Csesar's 
Palace, Pompey's Pillar, Qeopatra's Needle, the Catacombs, and ruins 
of ancient Alexandria, will be found worth the visit. The journey to 
Cairo, one hundred and thirty miles by rail, can be made in a few hours, 
and from which can be visited the site of ancient Memphis, Joseph's 
Granaries, and the Pyramids. 

From Alexandria the route will be taken homeward, calling at Malta, 
Cagliari (in Sardinia), and Palma (in Majorca), all magnificent harbors, 
with charming scenery, and abounding in fruits. 

A day or two will be spent at each place, and leaving Palma in the 
evening, Valencia in Spain will be reached the next morning. A few 
days will be spent in this, the finest city of Spain. 

From Valencia, the homeward course will be continued, skirting 
along the coast of Spain. Alicante, Carthagena, Palos, and Malaga 
will be passed but a mile or two distant, and Gibraltar reached in about 
twenty- four hours. 

A stay of one day will be made here, and the voyage continued to 
Madeira, which will be reached in about three days. Captain Marryatt 
writes: " I do not know a spot on the globe which so much astonishes 
and delights upon first arrival as Madeira." A stay of one or two days 
wdll be made here, which, if time permits, may be extended, and passing 
on through the islands, and probably in sight of the Peak of Teneriffe, a 
southern track will be taken, and the Atlantic crossed within the latitudes 

4. 



50 The Innocents A'oroad 

of the Northeast trade winds, where mild and pleasant weather and a 
smooth sea can always be expected. 

A call will be made at Bermuda, which lies directly in this route 
homeward, and will be reached in about ten days from Madeira, and 
after spending a short time with our friends the Bermudians, the final 
departure will be made for home, which will be reached in about three 
days. 

Already, applications have been received from parties in Europe 
wishing to join the Excursion there. 

The ship will at all times be a home, where the excursionists, if sick, 
will be surrounded by kind friends, and have aU possible comfort and 
sympathy. 

Should contagious sickness exist in any of the ports named in the 
programme, such ports will be passed, and others of interest substituted. 

The price of passage is fixed at $1,250, currency, for each adult 
passenger. Choice of rooms and of seats at the tables apportioned in 
the order in which passages are engaged, and no passage considered 
engaged until ten per cent, of the passage money is deposited with the 
treasurer. 

Passengers can remain on board of the steamer at all ports, if they 
desire, without additional expense, and all boating at the expense of 
the ship. 

All passages must be paid for when taken, in order that the most 
perfect arrangements be made for starting at the appointed time. 

Applications for passage must be approved by the committee before 
tickets are issued, and can be made to the undersigned. 

Articles of interest or curiosity, procured by the passengers during 
the voyage, may be brought home in the steamer free of charge. 

Five dollars per day, in gold, it is believed, will be a fair calculation 
to make for all traveling expenses on shore, and at the various points 
where passengers may wish to leave the steamer for days at a time. 

The trip can be extended, and the route changed, by unanimom 
vote of the passengers. 

CHAS. C, DUNCAN, 

1 1 7 Wall Street, New York. 
R. R. G*»****, Treasurer. 

Committee on Applications. 
J. T. H******, Esq., R. R. G******, Esq., C. C. DUNCAN. 



The Innocents Abroad 51 

Committee on selecting Steamer. 
Opt. W. W. S******, Surveyor for Board of Underwriters. 
C. W. C******, Consulting Engineer for U, S, and Cdttada^ 
J. T. H******, Esq. 
C. C. DUNCAN. 

P. S. — The very beautiful and substantial side-wheel steamship 
** Quaker City^^ has been chartered for the occasion, and will leav# 
New York, June 8th. Letters have been issued by the government 
commending the party to courtesies abroad. 

What was there lacking about that program, to 
make it perfectly irresistible? Nothing, that any 
finite mind could discover. Paris, England, Scot- 
land, Switzerland, Italy — Garibaldi! The Grecian 
archipelago ! Vesuvius ! Constantinople ! Smyrna ! 
The Holy Land ! Egypt and ** our friends the Ber- 
mudians " ! People in Europe desiring to join the 
Excursion — contagious sickness to be avoided — 
boating at the expense of the ship — physician on 
board — the circuit of the globe to be made if the 
passengers unanimously desired it — the company 
to be rigidly selected by a pitiless ** Committee on 
Applications" — the vessel to be as rigidly selected 
by as pitiless a ** Committee on Selecting Steamer.*' 
Human nature could not withstand these bewildering 
temptations. I hurried to the Treasurer's office and 
deposited my ten per cent. I rejoiced to know that 
a few vacant staterooms were still left. I did avoid 
a critical personal examination into my character, by 
that bowelless committee, but I referred to all the 
people of high standing I could think of in the com- 



52 The Innocents Abroad 

munity who would be least likely to know anything 
about me. 

Shortly a supplementary program was issued which 
set forth that the Plymouth Collection of Hym.ns 
would be used on board the ship, I then paid the 
balance of my passage money. 

I was provided with a receipt, and duly and 
officially accepted as an excursionist. There was 
happiness in that, but it was tame compared to the 
novelty of being ** select.'* 

This supplementary program also instructed the 
excursionists to provide themselves with light musi- 
cal instruments for amusement in the ship ; with sad- 
dles for Syrian travel ; green spectacles and umbrellas ; 
veils for Egypt; and substantial clothing to use in 
rough pilgrimizing in the Holy Land. Furthermore, 
it was suggested that although the ship's library 
would afford a fair amount of reading matter, it 
would still be well if each passenger would provide 
himself with a few guide-books, a Bible, and some 
standard works of travel. A list was appended, 
which consisted chiefly of books relating to the 
Holy Land, since the Holy Land was part of the 
excursion and seemed to be its main feature. 

Rev. Henry Ward Beecher was to have accom- 
panied the expedition, but urgent duties obliged him 
to give up the idea. There were other passengers 
who could have been spared better, and would have 
been spared more willingly. Lieutenant-General 
Sherman was to have been of the party, also. 



The Innocents Abroad 53 

but the Indian war compelled his presence on the 
plains. A popular actress had entered her name on 
the ship's books, but something interfered, and she 
couldn't go. The ** Drummer Boy of the Potomac " 
deserted, and lo, we had never a celebrity left! 

However, we were to have a ** battery of guns'* 
from the Navy Department (as per advertisement), 
to be used in answering royal salutes ; and the docu- 
ment furnished by the Secretary of the Navy, which 
was to make *' General Sherman and party" wel- 
come guests in the courts and camps of the old 
world, was still left to us, though both document 
and battery, I think, were shorn of somewhat of 
their original august proportions. However, had 
not we the seductive program, still, with its Paris, 
its Constantinople, Smyrna, Jerusalem, Jericho, and 
* ' our friends the Bermudians ' ' ? What did we care ? 



CHAPTER II. 

OCCASIONALLY, during the following month, I 
dropped in at 117 Wall Street to inquhe how 
the repairing and refurnishing of the vessel was com- 
ing on ; how additions to the passenger list were aver- 
aging; how many people the committee were de- 
creeing not ** select,*' every day, and banishing in 
sorrow and tribulation. I was glad to know that we 
were to have a little printing-press on board and 
issue a daily newspaper of our own. I was glad to 
learn that our piano, our parlor organ, and our 
melodeon were to be the best instruments of the 
kind that could be had in the market. I was proud 
to observe that among our excursionists were three 
ministers of the gospel, eight doctors, sixteen or 
eighteen ladies, several military and naval chieftains 
with sounding titles, an ample crop of ** Professors *' 
of various kinds, and a gentleman who had *' COM- 
MISSIONER OF THE United States of America to 
Europe, Asia, and Africa*' thundering after his 
name in one awful blast ! I had carefully prepared 
myself to take rather a back seat in that ship, be- 
cause of the uncommonly select material that would 

(f54> 



The Innocents Abroad 55 

alone be permitted to pass through the camel's eye 
of that committee on credentials; I had schooled 
myself to expect an imposing array of military and 
naval heroes, and to have to set that back seat still 
further back in consequence of it, may be; but I 
state frankly that I was all unprepared for this 
crusher. 

I fell under that titular avalanche a torn and 
blighted thing. I said that if that potentate must 
go over in our ship, why, I supposed he must — but 
that to my thinking, when the United States consid- 
ered it necessary to send a dignitary of that tonnage 
across the ocean, it would be in better taste, and 
safer, to take him apart and cart him over in sections, 
in several ships. 

Ah, if I had only known, then, that he was only 
a common mortal, and that his mission had nothing 
more overpowering about it than the collecting of 
seeds, and uncommon yams and extraordinary cab- 
bages and peculiar bullfrogs for that poor, useless, 
innocent, mildewed old fossil, the Smithsonian In- 
stitute, I would have felt so much relieved. 

During that memorable month I basked in the hap- 
piness of being for once in my life drifting with the 
tide of a great popular movement. Everybody was 
going to Europe — I, too, was going to Europe. 
Everybody was going to the famous Paris Exposition 
— I, too, was going to the Paris Exposition. The 
steamship lines were carrying Americans out of the 
various ports of the country at the rate of four or 



56 The innocents Abroad 

five thousand a week, in the aggregate. If I met a 
dozen individuals, during that month, who were not 
going to Europe shortly, I have no distinct remem- 
brance of it now, I walked about the city a good 
deal with a young Mr. Blucher, who was booked 
for the excursion. He was confiding, good-natured, 
unsophisticated, companionable; but he was not a 
man to set the river on fire. He had the most ex- 
traordinary notions about this European exodus, and 
came at last to consider the whole nation as packing 
up for emigration to France. We stepped into a 
store in Broadway, one day, where he bought a 
handkerchief, and when the man could not make 
change, Mr. B. said : 

** Never mind, I'll hand it to you in Paris.'* 

** But I am not going to Paris," 

** How is — what did I understand you to say? '' 

** I said I am not going to Paris.'* 

** Not going to Paris f Not g — well then., where 
in the nation are you going to? " 

'* Nowhere at all." 

** Not anywhere whatsoever? — not anyplace on 
earth but this?" 

** Not any place at all but just this — stay here all 
summer." 

My comrade took his purchase and walked out of 
the store without a word — walked out with an in- 
jured look upon his countenance. Up the street 
apiece he broke silence and said impressively : * * It 
was a lie — that is my opinion of it ! " 



The Innocents Abroad 57 

In the fullness of time the ship was ready to re- 
ceive her passengers. I was introduced to the 
young gentleman who was to be my room-mate, and 
found him to be intelligent, cheerful of spirit, un- 
selfish, full of generous impulses, patient, consider- 
ate, and wonderfully good-natured. Not any 
passenger that sailed in the Quaker City will with- 
hold his endorsement of what I have just said. We 
selected a stateroom forward of the wheel, on the 
starboard side, *' below decks.** It had two berths 
in it, a dismal dead-light, a sink with a wash-bowl in 
it, and a long sumptuously cushioned locker, which 
was to do service as a sofa — partly, and partly as a 
hiding place for our things. Notwithstanding all this 
furniture, there was still room to turn around in, but 
not to swing a cat in, at least with entire security to 
the cat. However, the room was large, for a ship*s 
stateroom, and was in every way satisfactory. 

The vessel was appointed to sail on a certain Sat-i 
urday early in June. 

A little after noon, on that distinguished Saturday, 
3 reached the ship and went on board. All was 
bustle and confusion. [I have seen that remark be- 
fore, somewhere.] The pier was crowded with car- 
riages and men ; passengers were arriving and hurry- 
ing on board ; the vessel's decks were encumbered 
with trunks and valises ; groups of excursionists, 
arrayed in unattractive traveling costumes, were 
moping about in a drizzling rain and looking as 
droopv and woe-begone as so many molting chick° 



58 The Innocents Abroad 

ens The gallant flag was up, but it was under the 
spell, too, and hung limp and disheartened by the 
mast. Altogether, it was the bluest, bluest spectacle ! 
It was a pleasure excursion — there was no gainsay- 
ing that, because the program said so — it was so 
nominated in the bond — but it surely hadn't the 
general aspect of one. 

Finally, above the banging, and rumbling, and 
shouting and hissing of steam, rang the order to 
'* cast off!** — a sudden rush to the gangways — a 
scampering ashore of visitors — a revolution of the 
wheels, and we were off — the picnic was begun! 
Two very mild cheers went up from the dripping 
crowd on the pier ; we answered them gently from 
the slippery decks ; the flag made an effort to wave, 
and failed; the *' battery of guns '* spake not — the 
ammunition was out 

We steamed down to the foot of the harbor and 
came to anchor It was still raining. And not only 
raining, but storming. '* Outside** we could see, 
ourselves, that there was a tremendous sea on. We 
must lie still, in the calm harbor, till the storm should 
abate. Our passengers hailed from fifteen states; 
only a few of them had ever been to sea before; 
manifestly it would not do to pit them against a full- 
blown tempest until they had got their sea-legs on. 
Towards evening the two steam tugs that had accom- 
panied us with a rollicking champagne party of young 
New Yorkers on board who wished to bid farewell to 
one of our number in due and ancient form, de- 



The Innocents Abroad 59 

parted, and we were alone on the deep. On deep 
five fathoms, and anchored fast to the bottom. And 
out in the solemn rain, at that. This was pleasure 
ing with a vengeance. 

It was an appropriate relief when the gong sounded 
for prayer-meeting. The first Saturday night of any 
other pleasure excursion might have been devoted to 
whist and dancing ; but I submit it to the unpreju- 
diced mind if it would have been in good taste for us 
to engage in such frivolities, considering what we had 
gone through and the frame of mind we were in. 
We would have shone at a wake, but not at anything 
more festive. 

However, there is always a cheering influence about 
the sea; and in my berth, that night, rocked by the 
measured swell of the waves, and lulled by the mur- 
mur of the distant surf, I soon passed tranquilly out 
of all consciousness of the dreary experiences of the 
day and damaging premonitions of the futurCo 



CHAPTER III. 

ALL day Sunday at anchor. The storm had gone 
down a great deal, but the sea had not. It was 
still piling its frothy hills high in air ** outside/* as 
we could plainly see with the glasses. We could 
not properly begin a pleasure excursion on Sunday; 
we could not offer untried stomachs to so pitiless a 
sea as that. We must lie still till Monday. And 
we did. But we had repetitions of church and 
prayer-meetings; and so, of course, we were Just as 
eligibly situated as we could have been anywhere. 

I was up early that Sabbath morning, and was 
early to breakfast. I felt a perfectly natural desire 
to have a good, long, unprejudiced look at the pas- 
sengers, at a time when they should be free from 
self-consciousness — which is at breakfast, when 
such a moment occurs in the lives of human beings 
at all. i 

I was greatly surprised to see so many elderly peo- 
ple — I might almost say, so many venerable people. 
A glance at the long lines of heads was apt to make 
one think it was all gray. But it was not. There 
was a tolerably fair sprinkling of yojmg folks, and 

<6o> 



The Innocents Abroad 61 

another fair sprinkling of gentlemen and ladies who 
were non-committal as to age, being neither actually 
old or absolutely young. 

The next morning, we weighed anchor and went 
to sea. It was a great happiness to get away, after 
this dragging, dispiriting delay. I thought there 
never was such gladness in the air before, such 
brightness in the sun, such beauty in the sea. I was 
satisfied with the picnic, then, and with all its belong- 
ings. All my malicious instincts were dead within me ; 
and as America faded out of sight, I think a spirit 
of charity rose up in their place that was as bound- 
less, for the time being, as the broad ocean that was 
heaving its billows about us. I wished to express my 
feelings — I wished to lift up my voice and sing, but 
I did not know anything to sing, and so I was obliged 
to give up the idea. It was no loss to the ship 
though, perhaps. 

It was breezy and pleasant, but the sea was still 
very rough. One could not promenade without 
risking hi? neck ; at one moment the bowsprit was 
taking a deadly aim at the sun in mid-heaven, and at 
the next it was trying to harpoon a shark in the bot- 
tom of the ocean. What a weird sensation it is to 
feel the stern of a ship sinking swiftly from under 
you and see the bow climbing high away among the 
clouds ! One's safest course, that day, was to clasp 
a railing and hang on ; walking was too precarious 
a pastime. 

By some happy fortune I was not seasick That 



6a The iKmocents Abroad 

was a thing to be proud of. I had not always 
escaped before. If there Ss one thing in the 
world that will make a man peculiarly and insuffer- 
ably self-conceited, it is to have his stomach behave 
itself, the first day at sea^ when nearly all his 
tomrades are seasick. Soon, a venerable fossil, 
shawled to the chin and bandaged like a mummy, 
appeared at the door of the after deck-house, and 
the next lurch of the ship shot him into my arms. 
I said; 

'* Good morning, sir. It is a line day.** 

He put his hand on his stomach and said, **0/if 
my!** and then staggered away and fell over the 
coop of a skylight. 

Presently another old gentleman was projected 
from the same door, with great violence. I said : 

" Calm yourself, sir — There is no hurry. It is a 
fine day, sir.** 

He, also, put his hand on his stomach and said 
'^OA, my! ** and reeled away. 

In a little while another veteran was discharged 
abruptly from the same door, clawing at the air for 
a saving support. I said : 

** Good morning, sir. It is a fine day for pleasur- 
ing. You were about to say ** 

*' O/i, my!** 

I thought so. I anticipated Mm, anyhow. I 
stayed there and was bombarded with old gentlemen 
for an hour, perhaps ; and all I got out of any of 
them was ** 0/i^ myV* 



The innocents Abroad ej 

I went away, then, in a thoughtful mood I said.- 
this is a good pleasure excursion. I like it. The 
passengers are not garrulous, but still they are 
sociable. I like those old people, but somehow 
they all seem to have the ** Oh, my '* rather bad 

I knew what was the matter with theme They 
were seasick. And I was glad of it„ We all like to 
see people seasick when we are not, ourselves. 
Playing whist by the cabin lamps, when it is storm« 
ing outside, is pleasant ; walking the quarter-deck in 
the moonlight is pleasant; smoking in the breezy 
foretop is pleasant, when one is not afraid to go up 
there; but these are all feeble and commonplace 
compared with the joy of seeing people suffering the 
miseries of seasickness. 

I picked up a good deal of information during the 
afternoon. At one time I was climbing up the 
quarter-deck when the vessel's stern was in the sky; 
I was smoking a cigar and feeling passably comfort- 
able. Somebody ejaculated : 

** Come, now, that won't answer o Read the sign 
up there — No SMOKING ABAFT THE WHEEL!" 

It was Captain Duncan, chief of the expedition = 
I went forward, of course. I saw a long spyglass 
lying on a desk in one of the upper-deck staterooms 
back of the pilot-house, and reached after it — there 
was a ship in the distance : 

•• Ah, ah — hands off! Come out of that!*' 

I came out of that. I said to a deck-sweep — but 
in a low voice ; 



64 The Innocents Abroad 

**Who is that overgrown pirate with the whiskers 
and the discordant voice?" 

**It's Captain Bursley — executive officer — -sail' 
ing master.** 

I loitered about awhile, and then, for want of 
something better to do, fell to carving a railing with 
my knife. Somebody said, in an insinuating, ad' 
monitory voice : 

** 'Now, say — my friend — don't you know any 
better than to be whittling the ship all to pieces that 
way? Voii^ ought to know better than that." 

I went back and found the deck-sweep : 

**Who is that smooth-faced animated outrage 
yonder in the fine clothes?** 

** That's Captain L****, the owner of the ship — 
he's one of the main bosses." 

In the course of time I brought up on the star- 
board side of the pilot-house, and found a sextant 
lying ^n a bench. Now, I said, they ** take the 
sun ttitougn this thing; I should think I might see 
that vessel through it, I had hardly got it to my 
eye when some one touched me on the shoulder and 
said, deprecatingly : 

** I'll have to get you to give that to me, sir. If 
there's anything you'd like to know about taking the 
sun, I'd as soon tell you as not — but I don't like 
to trust anybody with that instrument. If you want 
any figuring done — Aye-aye, sir!** 

He was gone, to answer a call from the other side., 
X sought the deck-sweep ; 



The Innocents Abroad 65 

** Who is that spider-legged gorilla yonder with 
the sanctimonious countenance?'* 

*' It's Captain Jones, sir — the chief mate.** 

'* Well. This goes clear away ahead of anything 
I ever heard of before. Do you — now I ask you 
as a man and a brother — do you think I could 
venture to throw a rock here in any given direction 
without hitting a captain of this ship?'* 

**Well, sir, I don't know — I think likely you*d 
fetch the captain of the watch, maybe, because he's 
a-standing right yonder in the way.** 

I went below — meditating, and a little down- 
hearted. I thought, if five cooks can spoil a broth, 
what may not five captains do with a pleasure ex- 
cursiorio 
5 



CHAPTER IV. 

WE plowed along bravely for a week or morei. 
and without any conflict of jurisdiction among 
the captains worth mentioning. The passengers 
soon learned to accommodate themselves to their 
new circumstances, and life in the ship became 
nearly as systematically monotonous as the routine 
ot a barrack, I do not mean that it was dull, for it 
was not entirely so by any means — but there was a 
good deal of sameness about it. As is always the 
fashion at sea, the passengers shortly began to pick 
up sailor terms — a sign that they were beginning 
to feel at home. Half-past six was no longer half- 
past six to these pilgrims from New England, the 
South, and the Mississippi Valley, it was ** seven 
bells *' ; eight, twelve, and four o'clock were ** eight 
bells ' * ; the captain did not take the longitude at 
nine o'clock, but at **two bells.'* They spoke 
glibly of the ** after cabin,*' the **for'rard cabin," 
** port and starboard " and the ** fo' castle." 

At seven bells the first gong rang ; at eight there 
was breakfast, for such as were not too seasick to 
eat it. After that all the well people walked arm 

(66) 



The Innocents Abroad 67 

in-arm up and down the long promenade deck, 
enjoying the fine summer mornings, and the seasick 
ones crawled out and propped themselves up in the 
lee of the paddle-boxes and ate their dismal tea and 
toast, and looked wretched. From eleven o'clock 
until luncheon, and from luncheon until dinner at 
six in the evening, the employments and amusements 
were various. Some reading was done ; and much 
smoking and sewing, though not by the same 
parties ; there were the monsters of the deep to be 
looked after and wondered at ; strange ships had to 
be scrutinized through opera-glasses, and sage de- 
cisions arrived at concerning them ; and more than 
that, everybody took a personal interest in seeing 
that the flag was run up and politely dipped three 
times in response to the salutes of those strangers ; 
in the smoking-room there were always parties of 
gentlemen playing euchre, draughts, and dominoes, 
especially dominoes, that delightfully harmless game; 
and down on the main deck, ** for'rard " — for'rard 
of the chicken coops and the cattle — we had what 
was called ** horse-billiards.'* Horse-billiards is a 
fine game. It affords good, active exercise, hilarityp 
and consuming excitement. It is a mixture of 
** hop-scotch" and shuffle-board played with a 
crutch. A large hop-scotch diagram is marked out 
on the deck with chalk, and each compartment num- 
bered. You stand off three or four steps, with some 
broad wooden disks before you on the deck, and 
these you send forward with a vigorous thrust of a 



68 The Innocents Abroad 

long crutch. If a disk stops on a chalk line, it does 
not count anything. If it stops in division No. 7, 
it counts 7; in 5, it counts 5, and so on. The game 
is 100, and four can play at a time. That game 
would be very simple, played on a stationary floor, 
but with us, to play it well required science. We 
had to allow for the reeling of the ship to the right 
or the left. Very often one made calculations for a 
heel to the right and the ship did not go that way. 
The consequence was that that disk missed the 
whole hop-scotch plan a yard or two, and then there 
was humiliation on one side and laughter on the other. 

When it rained, the passengers had to stay in the 
house, of course — or at least the cabins — and 
amuse themselves with games, reading, looking out 
of the windows at the very familiar billows, and talk- 
ing gossip. 

By 7 o'clock in the evening, dinner was about 
over; an hour's promenade on the upper deck fol- 
lowed ; then the gong sounded and a large majority 
of the party repaired to the after cabin (upper) a 
handsome saloon fifty or sixty feet long, for prayers. 
The unregenerated called this saloon the ** Syna- 
gogue." The devotions consisted only of two 
hymns from the ** Plymouth Collection,'* and a 
short prayer, and seldom occupied more than fifteen 
minutes. The hymns were accompanied by parlor 
organ music when the sea was smooth enough to 
allow a performer to sit at the instrument without 
being lashed to his chair. 



The mnocents Abroad 6^ 

After prayers the Synagogue shortly took the 
semblance of a writing-school. The like of that 
picture was never seen in a ship before. Behind the 
long dining-tables on either side of the saloon, and 
scattered from one end to the other of the latter, 
some twenty or thirty gentlemen and ladies sat them 
down under the swaying lamps, and for two or three 
hours wrote diligently in their journals. Alas I that 
journals so voluminously begun should come to so 
lame and impotent a conclusion as most of them 
did ! I doubt if there is a single pilgrim of all that 
host but can show a hundred fair pages of journal 
concerning the first twenty days' voyaging in the 
Quaker City ; and I am morally certain that not ten 
of the party can show twenty pages of journal for 
the succeeding twenty thousand miles of voyaging! 
At certain periods it becomes the dearest ambition 
of a man to keep a faithful record of his perform- 
ances in a book ; and he dashes at this work with an 
enthusiasm that imposes on him the notion that 
keeping a journal is the veriest pastime in the worlds 
and the pleasantest. But if he only lives twenty-one 
days, he will find out that only those rare natures 
that are made up of pluck, endurance, devotion to 
duty for duty's sake, and invincible determination, 
may hope to venture upon so tremendous an enter* 
prise as the keeping of a journal and not sustain a 
shameful defeat. 

One of our favorite youths, Jack, a splendid 
70ung fellow with a head full of good sense, and a 



fO The Innocents Abroad 

pair of legs that were a wonder to look upon in the 
way of length and straightness and slimness, used 
to report progress every morning in the most glow- 
ing and spirited way, and say : 

** Oh, I'm coming along bully!'* (he was a little 
given to slang, in his happier moods) ** I wrote ten 
pages in my journal last night — and you know I 
wrote nine the night before, and twelve the night 
before that. Why, it's only fun!'* 

** What do you find to put in it, Jack?** 

** Oh, everything. Latitude and longitude, noon 
every day; and how many miles v/e made last 
twenty-four hours ; and all the domino games I beat, 
and horse-billiards; and whales and sharks and 
porpoises; and the text of the sermon, Sundays 
(because that'll tell at home, you know) ; and the 
ships we saluted and what nation they were; and 
which way the wind was, and whether there was a 
heavy sea, and what sail we carried, though we don't 
ever carry anjy, principally, going against a head 
wind always — wonder what is the reason oi that? — 
and how many lies Moult has told — Oh, everything! 
Fve got everything down. My father told me to 
keep that journal. Father wouldn't take a thousand 
dollars for it when I get it done.*' 

*• No, Jack; it will be worth more than a thou- 
sand dollars — when you get it done.*' 

**Do you? — no, but do you think it will, 
though?*' 

* Yes, it will be worth at least as much as 9 



The Innocents Abroad 71 

thousand dollars — when you get it done. Maybe^ 
more.'* 

** Well, I about half think so, myself. It ain*t no 
slouch of a journal.'* 

But it shortly became a most lamentable * * slouch 
of a journal.'* One night in Paris, after a hard 
day's toil in sight-seeing, I said : 

** Now I'll go and stroll around the caf^s awhile. 
Jack, and give you a chance to write up your jour- 
nal, old fellow.'* 

His countenance lost its fire. He said : 

•*Well, no, you needn't mind. I think I won't 
run that journal any more. It is awful tedious. Do 
you know — I reckon I'm as much as four thousand 
pages behindhand. I haven't got any France in it 
at all. First I thought I'd leave France out and start 
fresh. But that wouldn't do, would it? The gov 
ernor would say, * Hello, here — didn't see anything 
in France.?* That cat wouldn't fight, you know. 
First I thought I'd copy France out of the guide- 
book, like old Badger in the for'rard cabin who's 
writing a book, but there's more than three hundred 
pages of it. Oh, / don't think a journal's any use 
— do you? They're only a bother, ain't they?** 

** Yes, a journal that is incomplete isn't of much 
use, but a journal properly kept is worth a thousand 
dollars, — when you've got it done." 

**A thousand! — well, I should think so. / 
wouldn't finish it for a million," 

His experience was only the experience of th*' 



72 rhe Innocents Abroad 

majority of that industrious night-school in the 
cabin. If you wish to inflict a heartless and malig- 
nant punishment upon a young person, pledge him 
to keep a journal a year. 

A good many expedients were resorted to to keep 
the excursionists amused and satisfied. A club was 
formed, of all the passengers, which met in the 
writing-school after prayers and read aloud about 
the countries we were approaching, and discussed 
the information so obtained. 

Several times the photographer of the expedition 
brought out his transparent pictures and gave us a 
handsome magic lantern exhibition. His views were 
nearly all of foreign scenes, but there were one or 
two home pictures among them. He advertised that 
he would '* open his performance in the after cabin 
at * two bells' (9 p. m.), and show the passengers 
where they shall eventually arrive ' ' — which was all 
very well, but by a funny accident the first picture 
that flamed out upon the canvas was a view of 
Greenwood Cemetery! 

On several starlight nights we danced on the upper 
deck, under the awnings, and made something of a 
ball-room display of brilliancy by hanging a number 
of ship's lanterns to the stanchions. Our music 
consisted of the well-mixed strains of a melodeon 
which was a little asthmatic and apt to catch its 
breath where it ought to come out strong ; a clarinet 
which was a little unreliable on the high keys and 
rather melancholy on the low ones; and a disrepu- 



The innocents Abroad 73 

table accordion that had a leak somewhere and 
breathed louder than it squawked — a more elegant 
term does not occur to me just now. However, the 
dancing was infinitely worse than the music. When 
the ship rolled to starboard the whole platoon of 
dancers came charging down to starboard with it, 
and brought up in mass at the rail; and when it 
rolled to port, they went floundering down to port 
with the same unanimity of sentiment. Waltzers 
spun around precariously for a matter of fifteen 
seconds and then went skurrying down to the rail as 
if they meant to go overboard. The Virginia reelj 
as performed on board the Quaker City, had more 
genuine reel about it than any reel I ever saw be- 
fore, and was as full of interest to the spectator as it 
was full of desperate chances and hairbreadth es- 
capes to the participant. We gave up dancing, 
finally. 

We celebrated a lady's birthday anniversary, with 
toasts, speeches, a poem, and so forth. We also 
had a mock trial. No ship ever went to sea that 
hadn't a mock trial on board. The purser was ac- 
cused of stealing an overcoat from stateroom No„ 
10. A judge was appointed; also clerks, a crier of 
the court, constables, sheriffs; counsel for the state 
and for the defendant; witnesses were subpoenaed, 
and a jury empaneled after much challengingo The 
witnesses were stupid and unreliable and contradic- 
tory, as witnesses always arCo The counsel were 
eloquent, argumentative, and vindictively abusive of 



74 The Innocents Abroad 

each other, as was characteristic and proper. The 
case was at last submitted, and duly finished by the 
judge with an absurd decision and a ridiculous 
sentence. 

The acting of charades was tried, on several even- 
ings, by the young gentlemen and ladies, in the 
cabinsj and proved the most distinguished success of 
all the amusement experimentSo 

An attempt was made to organize a debating club, 
but it was a failure. There was no oratorical talent 
In the ship. 

We all enjoyed ourselves — I think I can safely 
say that, but it was in a rather quiet way. We very^ 
very seldom played the piano ; we played the flute 
and the clarinet together, and made good music, 
too, what there was of it, but we always played the 
same old tune; it was a very pretty tune — how 
well I remember it — I wonder when I shall ever get 
rid of it. We never played either the melodeon or 
the organ, except at devotions — but I am too fast; 
young Albert did know part of a tune — something 
about ** O Something-Or-Other How Sweet it is to 
Know that he's his What*s-his-Name'* (I do not 
remember the exact title of it, but it was very plain- 
tive, and full of sentiment), Albert played that 
pretty much all the time, until we contracted with 
him to restrain himself. But nobody ever sang by 
moonlight on the upper deck, and the congregational 
singing at church and prayers was not of a superior 
order of architecture. J. put up with it as long as J 



The Innocents Abroad n 

could, and then joined in and tried to improve it, 
but this encouraged young George to join in, too, 
and that made a failure of it; because George's 
voice was just ** turning," and when he was singing 
a dismal sort of bass, it was apt to fly off the handle 
and startle everybody with a most discordant cackle 
on the upper notes. George didn't know the tunes, 
either, which was also a drawback to his perform- 
ances. I said: 

** Come, now, George, don*f improvise. It looks 
too egotistical. It will provoke remark. Just stick 
to 'Coronation,* like the others. It is a good tune 
— jyou can't improve it any, just off-hand, in this 
way.'* 

** Why, I'm not trying to improve it — and I am 
singing like the others — just as it is in the notes." 

And he honestly thought he was, too ; and so he 
had no one to blame but himself when his voice 
caught on the center occasionally, and gave him the 
lockjaw. 

There were those among the unregenerated who 
attributed the unceasing head winds to our distress- 
ing choir music. There were those who said openly 
that it was taking chances enough to have such 
ghastly music going on, even when it was at its best; 
and that to exaggerate the crime by letting George 
help, was simply flying in the face of Providence. 
These said that the choir would keep up their lacer- 
ating attempts at melody until they would bring 
down a storm some day that would sink the ship. 



76 The Innocents Abroad 

There were even grumblers at the prayers. The 
executive officer said the Pilgrims had no charity. 

** There they are, down there every night at eight 
oells, praying for fair winds — when they know as 
well as I do that this is the only ship going east this 
time of the year, but there's a thousand coming 
west — what's a fair wind for us is a kead wind to 
them— -the Almighty's blowing a fair wind for a 
thousand vessels, and this tribe wants him to turn it 
clear around so as to accommodate one, — and she a 
steamship at that! It ain't good sense, it ain't good 
reason, it ain't good Christianity, it ain't common 
human charity. Avast with such nonsense!" 



CHAPTER V. 

TAKING it **by and large,'* as the sailors say, 
we had a pleasant ten days' run from New 
York to the Azores islands — not a fast run, for the 
distance is only twenty-four hundred miles — but a 
right pleasant one, in the main. True, we had head 
winds all the time, and several stormy experiences 
which sent fifty per cent, of the passengers to bed, 
sick, and made the ship look dismal and deserted — 
stormy experiences that all will remember who 
weathered them on the tumbling deck, and caught 
the vast sheets of spray that every now and then 
sprang high in air from the weather bow and swept 
the ship like a thunder shower; but for the most 
part we had balmy summer weather, and nights that 
were even finer than the days. We had the phe- 
nomenon of a full moon located just in the same 
spot in the heavens at the same hour every night. 
The reason of this singular conduct on the part of 
the moon did not occur to us at first, but it did 
afterward when we reflected that we were gaining 
about twenty minutes every day, because we were 
going east so fast — we gained just about enough 



78 The Innocents Abroad 

every day to keep along with the moon. It was 
becoming an old moon to the friends we had left 
behind us, but to us Joshuas it stood still in the 
same place, and remained always the same. 

Young Mr. Blucher, who is from the Far West, 
and is on his first voyage, was a good deal worried 
by the constantly changing ** ship time." He was 
proud of his new watch at first, and used to drag it 
out promptly when eight bells struck at noon, but 
he came to look after a while as if he were losing 
confidence in it. Seven days out from New York 
he came on deck, and said with great decision : 

**This thing's a swindle!" 

"What's a swindle?" 

** Why, this watch. I bought her out in Illinois 
— gave $150 for her — and I thought she was good. 
And, by George, she is good on shore, but some- 
how she don't keep up her lick here on the water — 
gets seasick, maybe. She skips; she runs along 
regular enough till half-past eleven, and then, all of 
a sudden, she lets down. I've set that old regulator 
up faster and faster, till I've shoved it clear around, 
but it don't do any good ; she just distances every 
watch in the ship, and clatters along in a way that's 
astonishing till it is noon, but them eight bells always 
gets in about ten minutes ahead of her, anyway. I 
don't know what to do with her now. She's doing 
all she can — she's going her best gait, but it won't 
save her. Now, don't you know, there ain't a watch 
in the ship that's making better time than she is; 



The Innocents Abroad 



n 



i^ut what does it signify? When you hear thera 
eight bells you'll find her just about ten minutes 
short of her score, sure." 

The ship was gaining a full hour every three days, 
and this fellow was trying to make his watch go fast 
enough to keep up to her. But, as he had said, he 
had pushed the regulator up as far as it would gOp 
and the watch was ** on its best gait," and so noth- 
ing was left him but to fold his hands and see the 
ship beat the racec We sent him to the captain, 
and he explained to him the mystery of **ship 
time," and set his troubled mind at rest. This 
young man asked a great many questions about 
seasickness before we left, and wanted to know what 
its characteristics were, and how he was to tell when 
he had it. He found out. 

We saw the usual sharks, blackfish, porpoises, 
etc., of course, and by and by large schools of 
Portuguese men-of-war were added to the regular 
list of sea wonders. Some of them were white and 
some of a brilliant carmine color. The nautilus is 
nothing but a transparent web of jelly, that spreads 
itself to catch the wind, and has fleshy-looking 
strings a foot or two long dangling from it to keep 
it steady in the water. It is an accomplished sailor, 
and has good sailor judgment. It reefs its sail when 
a storm threatens or the wind blows pretty hard, and 
furls it entirely and goes down when a gale blows. 
Ordinarily it keeps its sail wet and in good sailing 
'>rder by turning over and dipping it in the water fpf 



80 The )(nnocents Abroad 

a moment. Seamen say the nautilus is only found 
in these waters between the 35 th and 45 th parallels 
of latitude. 

At three o'clock on the morning of the 21st of 
June we were awakened and notified that the 
Azores islands were in sighto I said I did not take 
any interest in islands at three o'clock in the morn- 
ing. But another persecutor came, and then another 
and another, and finally believing that the general 
enthusiasm would permit no one to slumber in 
peace, I got up and went sleepily on deck. It was 
five and a half o'clock now, and a raw, blustering 
morning. The passengers were huddled about the 
smoke stacks and fortified behind ventilators, and all 
were wrapped in wintry costumes, and looking sleepy 
and unhappy in the pitiless gale and the drenching 
spray. 

The island in sight was Flores. It seemed only a 
mountain of mud standing up out of the dull mists 
of the sea. But as we bore down upon it, the sun 
came out and made it a beautiful picture — - a mass 
of green farms and meadows that swelled up to a 
height of fifteen hundred feet, and mingled its 
upper outlines with the clouds. It was ribbed with 
sharp, steep ridges, and cloven with narrow canons, 
and here and there on the heights, rocky upheavals 
shaped themselves into mimic battlements and 
castles ; and out of rifted clouds came broad shafts 
of sunlight, that painted summit and slope and 
gleix with bands of fire, and left belts of somber 



The Innocents Abroad ' 3i 

shade between. It was the aurora boreah's of the 
frozen pole exiled to a summer land ! 

We skirted around two-thirds of the island, four 
miles from shore, and all the opera-glasses in the 
ship were called into requisition to settle disputes as 
to whether mossy spots on the uplands were groves 
of trees or groves of weeds, or whether the white 
villages down by the sea were really villages or only 
the clustering tombstones of cemeteries. Finally, 
we stood to sea and bore away for San Miguel, and 
Flores shortly became a dome of mud again, and 
sank down among the mists and disappeared. But 
to many a seasick passenger it was good to see the 
green hills again, and all were more cheerful after 
this episode than anybody could have expected 
them to be, considering how sinfully early they had 
gotten up. 

But we had to change our purpose about San 
Miguel, for a storm came up about noon that so 
tossed and pitched the ves?el that common sense 
dictated a run fcr shelter. Therefore we steered for 
the nearest island of the group — Fayal (the people 
there pronounce it Fy-all, and put the accent on the 
first syllable). We anchored in the open roadstead 
of Horta, half a mile from the shore. The town 
has eight thousand to ten thousand inhabitants. Its 
snow-white houses nestle cosily in a sea of fresh 
green vegetation, and no village could look prettier 
or more attractive. It sits in the lap of an amphi- 
theater of hills which are three hundred to sevea 
6* 



82 tlie Innocents Abroad 

hundred feet high, and carefully cultivated clear to 
their summits — not a foot of soil left idle. Every 
farm and every acre is cut up into little square in- 
closures by stone walls, whose duty it is to protect 
the growing products from the destructive gales that 
blow there. These hundreds of green squares, 
marked by their black lava walls, make the hills 
look like, vast checker-boards. 

The islands belong to Portugal, and everything in 
Fayal has Portuguese characteristics about it. But 
more of that anon. A swarm of swarthy, noisy, 
lying, shoulder-shrugging, gesticulating Portuguese 
boatmen, with brass rings in their ears, and fraud in 
their hearts, climbed the ship's sides, and various 
parties of us contracted with them to take us ashore 
at so much a head, silver coin of any country. We 
landed under the walls of a little fort, armed with 
batteries of twelve and thirty- two pounders, which 
Horta considered a most formidable institution, but 
if we were ever to get after it with one of our tur- 
reted monitors, they would have to move it out in 
the country if they wanted it where they could go 
and find it again when they needed it. The group 
on the pier was a rusty one — men and women, 
and boys and girls, all ragged and barefoot, un- 
combed and unclean, and by instinct, education, and 
profession, beggars. They trooped after us, and 
never more, while we tarried in Fayal, did we get 
rid of them. We walked up the middle of the prin- 
cipal streets and these vermin surrounded us on all 



The Innocents ADroad 85 

sides, and glared upon us; and every moment ex- 
cited couples shot ahead of the procession to get a 
good look back, just as village boys do when they 
accompany the elephant on his advertising trip from 
street to street. It was very flattering to me to be 
part of the material for such a sensation. Here and 
there in the doorways we saw women, with fashion- 
able Portuguese hoods on. This hood is of thick 
blue cloth, attached to a cloak of the same stuff, and 
is a marvel of ugliness. It stands up high, and 
spreads far abroad, and is unfathomably deep. It 
fits like a circus tent, and a woman's head is hidden 
away in it like the man's who prompts the singers 
from his tin shed in the stage of an opera. There is 
no particle of trimming about this monstrous capote^ 
as they call it — it is just a plain, ugly dead-blue 
mass of sail, and a woman can't go within eight 
points of the wind with one of them on ; she has to 
go before the wind or not at all. The general style 
of the capote is the same in all the islands, and will 
remain so for the next ten thousand years, but each 
island shapes its capotes just enough differently from 
the others to enable an observer to tell at a glance 
what particular island a lady hails from. 

The Portuguese pennies or reis (pronounced rays) 
are prodigious. It takes one thousand reis to make 
a dollar, and all financial estimates are made in reis. 
We did not know this until after we had found it out 
through Blucher. Blucher said he was so happy 
and so grateful to be on solid land once more, tha^ 



84 The innocents Abroad 

he wanted to give a feast — said he had heard it was 
a cheap land, and he was bound to have a grand 
banquet. He invited nine of us, and we ate an ex- 
cellent dinner at the principal hotel. In the midst 
of the jollity produced by good cigars, good wine, 
and passable anecdotes, the landlord presented his 
bill, Blucher glanced at it and his countenance fell. 
He took another look to assure himself that his 
senses had not deceived him, and then read the items 
aloud, in a faltering voice, while the roses in his 
cheeks turned to ashes: 

*'*Ten dinners, at 600 reis, 6,000 reis!* Ruin 
and desolation !'* 

*** Twenty-five cigars, at lOO reis, 2,500 reis!' 
Oh, my sainted mother!'* 

**' Eleven bottles of wine, at 1,200 reis, 13,200 
reis!' Be with us all!" 

*** Total, TWENTY-ONE thousand seven hun- 
dred reis!* The suffering Moses! — there ain't 
money enough in the ship to pay that bill ! Go — 
leave me to my misery, boys, I am a ruined com- 
munityc** 

I think it was the blankest looking party I ever 
saw. Nobody could say a word. It was as if every 
soul had been stricken dumb. Wine glasses de- 
scended slov/ly to the table, their contents untasted. 
Cigars dropped unnoticed from nerveless fingers. 
Each man sought his neighbor's eye, but found in it 
no ray of hope, no encouragement. At last the 
^fearful silence was broken < The shadow of a des 



The Innocents Abroad 3S 

perate resolve settled upon Blucher*s countenance 
like a cloud, and he rose up and said: 

^* Landlord, this is a low, mean swindle, and I'D. 
never, never stand it. Here's a hundred and iifty 
dollars, sir, and it's all you'll get — I'll swim in 
blood, before I'll pay a cent more." 

Our spirits rose and the landlord's fell — at least 
we thought so ; he was confused at any rate, not- 
withstanding he had not understood a word that had 
been said. He glanced from the little pile of gold 
pieces to Blucher several times, and then went out. 
He must have visited an American, for, when he 
returned, he brought back his bill translated into a 
language that a Christian could understand — thus: 

10 dinners, 6,000 reis, or . ♦ . . $6.00 

25 cigars, 2,500 reis, or . • • , 2.50 . 

11 bottles wine, 13,200 reis, or • • • 13.20 

Total 21,700 reis, or . • . , . $21.70 

Happiness reigned once more in Blucher*s dinner 
party. More refreshments were ordered,. 



CHAPTER VL 

I THINK the Azores must be very little known in 
America. Out of our whole ship's company 
there was not a solitary individual who knew any- 
thing whatever about them. Some of the party, 
well read concerning most other lands, had no other 
information about the Azores than that they were a 
group of nine or ten small islands far out in the 
Atlantic, something more than half way between 
New York and Gibraltar. That was all. These con- 
siderations move me to put in a paragraph of dry 
facts just here» 

The community is eminently Portuguese — that is 
to say, it is slow, poor, shiftless, sleepy, and lazy. 
There is a civil governor, appointed by the King of 
Portugal; and also a military governor, who can 
assume supreme control and suspend the civil gov- 
ernment at his pleasure. The islands contain a 
population of about 200,000, almost entirely Portu- 
guese. Everything is staid and settled, for the 
country was one hundred years old when Columbus 
discovered America. The principal crop is corn, 
and they raise it and grind it just as their great-great- 

(86) 



The Innocents Abroad 87 

great-grandfathers did. They plow with a board 
slightly shod with iron ; their trifling little harrows 
are drawn by men and women; small windmills 
grind the corn, ten bushels a day, and there is one 
assistant superintendent to feed the mill and a gen- 
eral superintendent to stand by and keep him from 
going to sleep. When the wind changes they hitch 
on some donkeys, and actually turn the whole upper 
half of the mill around until the sails are in proper 
position, instead of fixing the concern so that the 
sails could be moved instead of the mill. Oxen 
tread the wheat from the ear, after the fashion pre- 
valent in the time of Methuselah. There is not a 
wheelbarrow in the land — they carry everything on 
their heads, or on donkeys, or in a wicker-bodied 
cart, whose wheels are solid blocks of wood and 
whose axles turn with the wheel. There is not a 
modern plow in the islands, or a threshing-machine., 
All attempts to introduce them have failed. The 
good Catholic Portuguese crossed himself and prayed 
God to shield him from all blasphemous desire to 
know more than his father did before him. The 
climate is mild ; they never have snow or ice, and I 
saw no chimneys in the town. The donkeys and 
the men, women, and children of a family, all eat 
and sleep in the same room, and are unclean, are 
ravaged by vermin, and are truly happy. The 
people lie, and cheat the stranger, and are desper- 
ately ignorant, and have hardly any reverence for 
their dead. The latter trait shows how littie better 



SS The Innocents Abroad 

they are than the donkeys they eat and sleep with. 
The only well-dressed Portuguese in the camp are 
the half a dozen well-to-do families, the Jesuit priests, 
and the soldiers of the little garrison. The wages of 
a laborer are twenty to twenty-four cents a day, and 
those of a good mechanic about twice as much. 
They count it in reis at a thousand to the dollar, and 
this makes them rich and contented. Fine grapes 
used to grow in the islands, and an excellent wine 
was made and exported. But a disease killed all 
the vines fifteen years ago, and since that time no 
wine has been made. The islands being wholly of 
volcanic origin, the soil is necessarily very rich. 
Nearly every foot of ground is under cultivation, 
and two or three crops a year of each article are 
produced, but nothing is exported save a few 
oranges- — chiefly to England. Nobody comes here, 
and nobody goes away. News is a thing unknown 
in FayaL A thirst for it is a passion equally un- 
known. A Portuguese of average intelligence in- 
quired if our civil war v/as over? because, he said, 
somebody had told him it was — or, at least, it ran 
in his mind, that somebody had told him something 
like that! And when a passenger gave an officer 
of the garrison copies of the Tribune^ the Herald, 
and TimeSy he was surprised to find later news in 
them from Lisbon than he had just received 
by the little monthly steamer. He was told that 
it came by cable. He said he knew they had 
tried to lay a cable ten years ago?, but it had 



The innocents Abroad S9 

been In his mind, somehow, that they hadn't 
succeeded ! 

It is in communities like this that Jesuit humbug' 
gery flourishes. We visited a Jesuit cathedral nearly 
two hundred years old, and found in it a piece of the 
veritable cross upon which our Saviour was crucified. 
It was polished and hard, and in as excellent a state 
of preservation as if the dread tragedy on Calvary 
had occurred yesterday instead of eighteen centuries 
ago. But these confiding people believe in that 
piece of wood unhesitatingly. 

In a chapel of the cathedral is an altar with 
facings of solid silver — at least, they call it so, and 
I think myself it would go a couple of hundred to 
the ton (to speak after the fashion of the silver 
miners), and before it is kept forever burning a small 
lamp. A devout lady who died, left money and 
contracted for unlimited masses for the repose of 
her soul, and also stipulated that this lamp should 
be kept lighted always, day and night. She did all 
this before she died, you understand. It is a very 
small lamp, and a very dim one, and it could not 
work her much damage, I think, if it went out 
altogether. 

The great altar of the cathedral, and also three or 
four minor ones, are a perfect mass of gilt gimcracks 
and gingerbread. And they have a swarm of rusty,, 
dusty, battered apostles standing around the filigree 
work, some on one leg and some with one eye out 
but a gamey look in the other, and some with two 



90 The Innocents Abroad 

or three fingers gone, and some with not enough 
nose left to blow — -all of them crippled and dis- 
couraged, and fitter subjects for the hospital than 
the cathedral. 

The walls of the chancel are of porcelain, all 
pictured over with figures of almost life size, very 
elegantly wrought, and dressed in the fanciful cos- 
tumes of two centuries agOc The design was a his- 
tory of something or somebody, but none of us were 
learned enough to read the storyc The old father, 
reposing under a stone close by, dated 1686, might 
have told us if he could have risen. But he didn't,^ 

As we came down through the town, we encoun- 
tered a squad of little donkeys ready saddled for 
use. The saddles were peculiar, to say the least. 
They consisted of a sort of saw-buck, with a small 
mattress on it, and this furniture covered about half 
the donkey o There were no stirrups, but really 
such supports were not needed — to use such a 
saddle was the next thing to riding a dinner table — 
there was ample support clear out to one's knee 
jointSe A pack of ragged Portuguese muleteers 
crowded around us, offering their beasts at half a 
dollar an hour — more rascality to the stranger, for 
the market price is sixteen cents. Half a dozen of 
us mounted the ungainly affairs, and submitted to 
the indignity of making a ridiculous spectacle of 
ourselves through the principal streets of a town of 
10,000 inhabitants. 

We started. It was not a trot, a gallop, or i 



The Innocents Abroad 91 

canter, but a stampede, and made up of all possible 
or conceivable gaits. No spurs were necessary. 
There was a muleteer to every donkey and a dozen 
volunteers beside, and they banged the donkeys 
with their goad-sticks, and pricked them with their 
spikes, and shouted something that sounded Hke 
*' Sekki-yah /" and kept up a din and a racket that 
was worse than Bedlam itself. These rascals were 
all on foot, but no matter, they were always up to 
time — they can outrun and outlast a donkey. 
Altogether ours was a lively and picturesque pro- 
cession, and drew crowded audiences to the balconies 
wherever we went. 

Blucher could do nothing at all with his donkey. 
The beast scampered zigzag across the road and the 
others ran into him ; he scraped Blucher against carts 
and the corners of houses ; the road was fenced in 
with high stone walls, and the donkey gave him a 
polishing first on one side and then on the other, but 
never once took the middle ; he finally came to the 
house he was born in and darted into the parlor, 
scraping Blucher off at the doorway. After re- 
mounting, Blucher said to the muleteer, ** Now, 
that's enough, you know; you go slow hereafter." 
But the fellow knew no English and did not under- 
stand, so he simply said, *'*' Sekki-yah T* and the 
donkey was off again like a shot. He turned a 
corner suddenly, and Blucher went over his head. 
And, to speak truly, every mule stumbled over the 
two, and the whole cavalcade was piled up in ? 



92 The Innocents Abroad 

heap. No harm done. A fall from one of those 
donkeys is of little more consequence than rolling 
off a sofa. The donkeys all stood still after the 
catastrophe, and waited for their dismembered sad- 
dles to be patched up and put on by the noisy 
muleteers. Blucher was pretty angry, and wanted 
to swear, but every time he opened his mouth his 
animal did so also, and let off a series of brays that 
drowned all other sounds. 

It was fun, skurrying around the breezy hills and 
through the beautiful canons. There was that rare 
thing, novelty, about it;, it was a fresh, new, ex- 
hilarating sensation, this donkey riding, and worth a 
hundred worn and threadbare home pleasures. 

The roads were a wonder, and well they might be. 
Here was an island with only a handful of people in 
it — 25,000 — and yet such fine roads do not exist 
in the United States outside of Central Park. Every- 
where you go, in any direction, you find either a 
hard, smooth, level thoroughfare, just sprinkled with 
black lava sand, and bordered with little gutters 
neatly paved with small smooth pebbles, or com- 
pactly paved ones like Broadway, They talk much 
of the Russ pavement in New York, and call it a 
new invention — yet here they have been using it in 
this remote little isle of the sea for two hundred 
years ! Every street in Horta is handsomely -paved 
with the heavy Russ blocks, and the surface is neat 
and true as a floor— -not marred by holes like 
Broadway And every road is fenced in by tall, 



The Innocents Abroad 95 

solid lava walls, which will last a thousand years in 
this land where frost is unknown. They are very 
thick, and are often plastered and whitewashed, and 
capped with projecting slabs of cut stone. Trees 
from gardens above hang their swaying tendril? 
down, and contrast their bright green with the white- 
wash or the black lava of the walls, and make them 
beautiful. The trees and vines stretch across these 
narrow roadways sometimes, and so shut out the 
sun that you seem to be riding through a tunnel. 
The pavements, the roads, and the bridges are all 
government work. 

The bridges are of a single span — a single arch — 
of cut stone, without a support, and paved on top 
with flags of lava and ornamental pebble work. 
Everywhere are walls, walls, walls, — and all of them 
tasteful and handsome — and eternally substantial; 
and everywhere are those marvelous pavements, so 
neat, so smooth, and so indestructible. And if ever 
roads and streets, and the outsides of houses, were 
perfectly free from any sign or semblance of dirt or 
dust or mud, or uncleanliness of any kind, it is 
Horta, it is Fayal. The lower classes of the people, 
in their persons and their domiciles, are not clean — 
but there it stops — the town and the island are 
miracles of cleanliness. 

We arrived home again finally, after a ten-mile 
excursion, and the irrepressible muleteers scampered 
at our heels through the main street, goading 
the donkeys, shouting the everlasting " Sekki-yah^** 



g4 The Innocents Abroad 

and singing **John Brown's Body** in ruinous 
English. 

When we were dismounted and it came to set- 
ting, the shouting and jawing and swearing and 
quarreling among the muleteers and with us, was 
nearly deafening. One fellow would demand a 
dollar an hour for the use of his donkey; another 
claimed half a dollar for pricking him up, another a 
quarter for helping in that service, and about four- 
teen guides presented bills for showing us the way 
through the town and its environs; and every 
vagrant of them was more vociferous, and more 
vehement, and more frantic in gesture than his 
neighbor. We paid one guide, and paid for one 
muleteer to each donkey. 

The mountains on some of the islands are very 
high. We sailed along the shore of the Island of 
Pico, under a stately green pyramid that rose up 
with one unbroken sweep from our very feet to an 
altitude of 7,613 feet, and thrust its summit above 
the white clouds like an island adrift in a fog ! 

We got plenty of fresh oranges, lemons, figs, 
apricots, etc., in these Azores, of course. But I 
will desist. I am not here to write patent office 
reports. 

We are on our way to Gibraltar, and shall reach 
there five or six days out from the Azores. 



CHAPTER VII. 

SWEEK of buffeting a tempestuous and relent- 
less sea ; a week of seasickness and deserted 
cabins ; of lonely quarter-decks drenched with spray 
— spray so ambitious that it even coated the smoke 
stacks thick with a white crust of salt to their very 
tops ; a week of shivering in the shelter of the life- 
boats and deck-houses by day, and blowing suffo- 
cating "clouds" and boisterously performing at 
dominoes in the smoking-room at night. 

And the last night of the seven was the stormiest 
of all. There was no thunder, no noise but the 
pounding bows of the ship, the keen whistling of 
the gale through the cordage, and the rush of the 
seething waters » But the vessel climbed aloft as if 
she would climb to heaven — then paused an instant 
that seemed a century, and plunged headlong down 
again, as from a precipice. The sheeted sprays 
drenched the decks like rain. The blackness of 
darkness was everywhere. At long intervals a flash 
of lightning clove it with a quivering line of fire, that 
revealed a heaving world of water where was nothing 
before, kindled the dusky cordage to glittering silver, 

(95) 



96 The Innocents Abroad 

and lit up the faces of the men with a ghastly 
luster ! 

Fear drove many on deck that were used to avoid- 
ing the night winds and the spray. Some thought 
the vessel could not live through the night, and it 
seemed less dreadful to stand out in the midst of the 
wild tempest and see the peril that threatened than 
to be shut up in the sepulchral cabins, under the 
dim lamps, and imagine the horrors that were abroad 
on the ocean. And once out — once where they 
could see the ship struggling in the strong grasp of 
the storm — once where they could hear the shriek 
of the winds, and face the driving spray and look 
out upon the majestic picture the lightnings dis- 
closed, they were prisoners to a fierce fascination 
they could not resist, and so remained. It was a 
wild night — -and a very, very long one. 

Everybody was sent scampering to the deck at 
seven o'clock this lovely morning of the 30th of 
June with the glad news that land was in sight ! It 
was a rare thing and a joyful, to see all the ship's 
family abroad once more, albeit the happiness that 
sat upon every countenance could only partly con- 
ceal the ravages which that long siege of storms had 
wrought there. But dull eyes soon sparkled with 
pleasure, pallid cheeks flushed again, and frames 
weakened by sickness gathered new life from the 
quickening influences of the bright, fresh morning. 
Yea, and from a still more potent influence: the 
worn castaways were to see the blessed land again ! 



The Innocents Abroad 97 

— and to see it was to bring back that mother-land 
that was in all their thoughts. 

Within the hour we were fairly within the Straits 
of Gibraltar, the tall yellow-splotched hills of Africa 
>on our right, with their bases veiled in a blue haze 
and their summits swathed in clouds — the same 
being according to Scripture, which says that 
** clouds and darkness are over the land." The 
words were spoken of this particular portion of 
Africa, I believe. On our left were the granite- 
ribbed domes of old Spain. The Strait is only 
thirteen miles wide in its narrowest part. 

At short intervals, along the Spanish shore, were 
quaint-looking old stone towers — Moorish, we 
thought — but learned better afterward. In former 
times the Morocco rascals used to coast along the 
Spanish Main in their boats till a safe opportunity 
seemed to present itself, and then dart in and cap- 
ture a Spanish village, and carry off all the pretty 
women they could find. It was a pleasant business, 
and was very popular. The Spaniards built these 
watch towers on the hills to enabl-e them to keep a 
sharper lookout on the Moroccan speculators. 

The picture, on the other hand, was very beauti- 
ful to eyes weary of the changeless sea, and by and 
by the ship's company grew wonderfully cheerful. 
But while we stood admiring the cloud-capped peaks 
and the low^lands robed in misty gloom, a finer 
picture burst upon us and chained every eye like a 
magnet — a stately ship, with canvas piled on canvas 



98 The Innocents Abroaa 

till she was one towering mass of bellying sail ! She 
came speeding over the sea like a great bird. 
Africa and Spain were forgotten. All homage was 
for the beautiful stranger. While everybody gazed, 
she swept superbly by and flung the Stars and 
Stripes to the breeze ! Quicker than thought, hats 
and handkerchiefs flashed in the air, and a cheer 
went up ! She was beautiful before — she was 
radiant now. Many a one on our decks knew then 
for the first time how tame a sight his country's 
flag is at home compared to what it is in a foreign 
land. To see it is to see a vision of home itself and 
all its idols, and feel a thrill that would stir a very 
river of sluggish blood ! 

We were approaching the famed Pillars of Her- 
cules, and already the African one, ** Ape's Hill,'* 
a grand old mountain with summit streaked with 
granite ledges, was in sight. The other, the great 
Rock of Gibraltar, was yet to come. The ancients 
considered the Pillars of Hercules the head of navi- 
gation and the end of the world. The information 
the ancients didn't have was very voluminous. Even 
the prophets wrote book after book and epistle after 
epistle, yet never once hinted at the existence of a 
great continent on our side of the water ; yet they 
must have known it was there, I should think. 

In a few moments a lonely and enormous mass of 
rock, standing seemingly in the center of the wide 
strait and apparently washed on all sides by the sea, 
swung magnificently into view, and we needed no 



The innocents Abroad 99 

tedious traveled parrot to tell us it was Gibraltarc 
There could not be two rocks like that in one king- 
dom. 

The Rock of Gibraltar is about a mile and a half 
long, I should say, by 1,400 to 1,500 feet high, and 
a quarter of a mile wide at its base. One side and 
one end of it come about as straight up out of the 
sea as the side of a house, the other end is irregular 
and the other side is a steep slant which an army 
would find very difficult to climb. At the foot of 
this slant is the walled town of Gibraltar — or rather 
the town occupies part of the slant. Everywhere — 
on hillside, in the precipice, by the sea, on the 
heights, — everywhere you choose to look, Gibraltar 
is clad with masonry and bristling with guns. It 
makes a striking and lively picture, from whatsoever 
point you contemplate it. It is pushed out into the 
sea on the end of a flat, narrow strip of land, and is 
suggestive of a * * gob ' ' of mud on the end of a 
shingle. A few hundred yards of this flat ground at 
its base belongs to the English, and then, extending 
across the strip from the Atlantic to the Mediter- 
ranean, a distance of a quarter of a mile, comes the 
'* Neutral Ground,'* a space two or three hundred 
yards wide, which is free to both parties. 

** Are you going through Spain to Paris?" That 
question was bandied about the ship day and night 
from Fayal to Gibraltar, and I thought I never could 
get so tired of hearing any one combination of words 
again, or more tired of answering, ** I don't know.*' 



iOO The Innocents Abroad 

At the last moment six or seven had sufficient 
decision of character to make up their minds to go, 
and did go, and I felt a sense of relief at once — it 
was forever too late, now, and I could make up my 
mind at my leisure, not to go. I must have a pro- 
digious quantity of mind ; it takes me as much as a 
week, sometimes, to make it up. 

But behold how annoyances repeat themselves. 
IVe had no sooner gotten rid of the Spain distress 
than the Gibraltar guides started another — a tire- 
some repetition of a legend that had nothing very 
astonishing about it, even in the first place: **That 
high hill yonder is called the Queen's Chair; it is 
because one of the queens of Spain placed her chair 
there when the French and Spanish troops were be- 
sieging Gibraltar, and said she would never move 
from the spot till the English flag was lowered from 
the fortresses. If the English hadn't been gallant 
enough to lower the flag for a few hours one day, 
she'd have had to break her oath or die up there." 

We rode on asses and mules up the steep, narrow 
streets and entered the subterranean galleries the 
English have blasted out in the rock. These gal- 
leries are like spacious railway tunnels, and at short 
intervals in them great guns frown out upon sea and 
town through portholes five or six hundred feet 
above the ocean. There is a mile or so of this 
subterranean work, and it must have cost a vast deal 
of money and labor. The gallery guns command 
the peninsula and the harbors of both oceans, but 



The Innocents Abroad 101 

they might as well not be there, I should think, for 
an army could hardly climb the perpendicular wall 
oi the rock anyhow. Those lofty portholes afford 
superb views of the sea, though. At one place, 
where a jutting crag was hollowed out into a great 
chamber whose furniture was huge cannon and 
whose windows were portholes, a glimpse was 
caught of a hill not far away, and a soldier said : 

**That high hill yonder is called the Queen's 
Chair; it is because a queen of Spain placed her 
chair there once, when the French and Spanish 
troops were besieging Gibraltar, and said she would 
never move from the spot till the English flag was 
lowered from the fortresses. If the English hadn't 
been gallant enough to lower the flag for a few 
hours, one day, she'd have had to break her oath 
or die up there.'* 

On the topmost pinnacle of Gibraltar we halted a 
good while, and no doubt the mules were tired. 
They had a right to be. The military road was 
good, but rather steep, and there was a good deal 
of it. The view from the narrow ledge was magnifi- 
cent; from it vessels seeming like the tiniest little 
toy boats, were turned into noble ships by the tele- 
scopes ; and other vessels that were fifty miles away, 
and even sixty, they said, and invisible to the naked 
eye, could be clearly distinguished through those 
same telescopes. Below, on one side, we looked 
down upon an endless mass of batteries, and on the 
other straight down to the sea. 



102 The Innocents Abroad 

While I was resting ever so comfortably on a 
rampart, and cooling my baking head in the delicious 
breeze, an officious guide belonging to another party 
came up and said : 

**Senor, that high hill yonder is called the 
Queen's Chair '* 

** Sir, I am a helpless orphan in a foreign land. 
Have pity on me. Don*t — now don't inflict that 
most in-FERNAL old legend on me any more to- 
day!'* 

There — I had used strong language, after prom- 
ising I would never do , so again ; but the provoca- 
tion was more than human nature could bear. If 
you had been bored so, when you had the noble 
panorama of Spain and Africa and the blue Mediter- 
ranean spread abroad at your feet, and wanted to 
gaze, and enjoy, and surfeit yourself with its beauty 
in silence, you might have even burst into stronger 
language than I did. 

Gibraltar has stood several protracted sieges, one of 
them of nearly four years* duration (it failed) , and 
the English only captured it by stratagem. The 
wonder is that anybody should ever dream of trying 
so impossible a project as the taking it by assault — 
and yet it has been tried more than once. 

The Moors held the place twelve hundred years 
ago, and a staunch old castle of theirs of that date 
still frowns from the middle of the town, with moss- 
grown battlements and sides well scarred by shots 
fired in battles and sieges that are forgotten now. 



The Innocents Abroad 103 

A secret chamber, in the rock behind it, was dis- 
covered some time ago, which contained a sword of 
exquisite workmanship, and some quaint old armor 
of a fashion that antiquaries are not acquainted with, 
though it is supposed to be Roman. Roman armor 
and Roman relics, of various kinds, have been found 
in a cave in the sea extremity of Gibraltar ; history 
says Rome held this part of the country about the 
Christian era, and these things seem to confirm the 
statement. 

'\ In that cave, also, are found human bones, crusted 
with a very thick, stony coating, and wise men have 
ventured to say that those men not only lived before 
the flood, but as much as ten thousand years before 
it. It may be true — it looks reasonable enough — 
but as long as those parties can't vote any more, 
the matter can be of no great public interest. In 
this cave, likewise, are found skeletons and fossils 
of animals that exist in every part of Africa, yet 
within memory and tradition have never existed in 
any portion of Spain save this lone peak of Gibraltar ! 
So the theory is that the channel between Gibraltar 
and Africa was once dry land, and that the low, neutral 
neck between Gibraltar and the Spanish hills behind 
it was once ocean, and, of course, that these African 
animals, being over at Gibraltar (after rock, per-» 
haps — there is plenty there), got closed out when 
the great change occurred. The hills in Africa, 
across the channel, are full of apes, and there are 
now, and always have been, apes on the rock of 



104 The Innocents Abroad 

Gibraltar — but not elsewhere in Spain ! The sub- 
ject is an interesting one. 

There is an English garrison at Gibraltar of 6,000 
or 7,000 men, and so uniforms of flaming red are 
plenty; and red and blue, and undress costumes of 
snowy white, and also the queer uniform of the bare- 
kneed Highlander; and one sees soft-eyed Spanish 
girls from San Roque, and veiled Moorish beauties 
(I suppose they are beauties) from Tarifa, and 
turbaned, sashed, and trowsered Moorish merchants 
from Fez, and long-robed, bare-legged, ragged 
Mohammedan vagabonds from Tetouan and Tangier, 
some brown, some yellow, and some as black as 
virgin ink — and Jews from all around, in gaberdine, 
skull-cap, and slippers, just as they are in pictures 
and theaters, and just as they were three thousand 
years ago, no doubt. You can easily understand 
that a tribe (somehow our pilgrims suggest that ex- 
pression, because they march in a straggling pro- 
cession through these foreign places with such an 
Indian-like air of complacency and independence 
about them) like ours, made up from fifteen or six- 
teen states of the Union, found enough to stare at 
in this shifting panorama of fashion to-day. 

Speaking of our pilgrims reminds me that we have 
one or two people among us who are sometimes an 
annoyance. However, I do not count the Oracle in 
that list. I will explain that the Oracle is an inno« 
cent old ass who eats for four and looks wiser than 
the v/hole Academy of France would have any right 



The Innocents Abroad 105 

to look, and never uses a one-syllable word when he 
can think of a longer one, and never by any possible 
chance knows the meaning of any long word he 
uses, or ever gets it in the right place; yet he will 
serenely venture an opinion on the most abstruse 
subject, and back it up complacently with quotations 
from authors who never existed, and finally when 
cornered will slide to the other side of the question, 
say he has been there all the time, and come back 
at you with your own spoken arguments, only with 
the big words all tangled, and play them in your 
very teeth as original with himself. He reads a 
chapter in the guide books, mixes the facts all up, 
with his bad memory, and then goes off to inflict 
the whole mess on somebody as wisdom which has 
been festering in his brain for years, and which he 
gathered in college from erudite authors who are 
dead now and out of print. This morning at break- 
fast he pointed out of the window, and said : 

**Do you see that there hill out there on that 
African coast? It's one of them Pillows of Her- 
kewls, I should say — and there's the ukimate one 
alongside of it." 

* * The ultimate one — that is a good word — but 
the Pillars are not both on the same side of the 
strait." (I saw he had been deceived by a care- 
lessly written sentence in the Guide Book.) 

**Well, it ain't for you to say, nor for me. 
Some authors states it that way, and some states it 
different. Old Gibbons don't say nothing about 



106 The Innocents Abroad 

it, — just shirks it complete — Gibbons always done 
that when he got stuck — but there is Rolampton, 
what does he say? Why, he says that they was 
both on the same side, and Trinculian, and Sobaster, 
and Syraccus, and Langomarganbl " 

** Oh, that will do — that's enough. If you have 
got your hand in for inventing authors and testi- 
mony, I have nothing more to say — let them be on 
the same side." 

We don't mind the Oracle. We rather like him. 
We can tolerate the Oracle very easily ; but we have 
a poet and a good-natiired, enterprising idiot on 
board, and they do distress the company. The one 
gives copies of his verses to consuls, commanders, 
hotel keepers, Arabs, Dutch, — to anybody, in fact, 
who will submit to a grievous infliction most kindly 
meant. His poetry is all very well on shipboard, 
notwithstanding when he wrote an ** Ode to the 
Ocean in a Storm" in one half-hour, and an 
''Apostrophe to the Rooster in the Waist of the 
Ship " in the next, the transition was considered to 
be rather abrupt ; but when he sends an invoice of 
rhymes to the governor of Fayal and another to the 
commander-in-chief and other dignitaries in Gib- 
raltar, with the compliments of the Laureate of the 
Ship, it is not popular with the passengers. 

The other personage I have mentioned is young 
and green, and not bright, not learned, and not wise. 
He will be, though, some day, if he recollects the 
answers to all his questions. He is known about 



Tbe Innocents Abroad 107 

the ship as the "Interrogation Point," and this by 
constant use has become shortened to "Interroga- 
tion." He has distinguished himself twice already. 
In Fayal they pointed out a hill and told him it was 
eight hundred feet high and eleven hundred feet 
long. And they told him there was a tunnel two 
thousand feet long and one thousand feet high run- 
ning through the hill, from end to end. He believed 
it. He repeated it to everybody, discussed it, and 
read it from his notes. Finally, he took a useful 
hint from this remark which a thoughtful old pilgrim 
made: 

"Well, yes, it is sl little remarkable — singular 
tunnel altogether — stands up out of the top of the 
hill about two hundred feet, and one end of it sticks 
out of the hill about nine hundred! " 

Here in Gibraltar he corners these educated 
British officers and badgers them with braggadocio 
about America and the wonders she can perform. 
He told one of them a couple of our gunboats could 
come here and knock Gibraltar into the Mediter- 
ranean sea! 

At this present moment, half a dozen of us are 
taking a private pleasure excursion of our own 
devising. We form rather more than half the list of 
white passengers on board a small steamer bound 
for the venerable Moorish town of Tangier, Africa. 
Nothing could be more absolutely certain than that 
we are enjo)dng ourselves. One cannot do other- 
wise who speeds over these sparkling waters, and 



108 The Innocents Abroad 

breathes the soft atmosphere of this sunny land. 
Care cannot assail us here. We are out of its 
jurisdiction. 

We even steamed recklessly by the frowning fort- 
ress of Malabat (a stronghold of the Emperor of 
Morocco), without a twinge of fear. The whole 
garrison turned out under arms, and assumed a 
threatening attitude — yet still we did not fear. The 
entire garrison marched and counter-marched, within 
the rampart, in full view — yet notwithstanding even 
this, we never flinched. 

I suppose we really d9 not know what fear is. I 
inquired the name of the garrison of the fortress of 
Malabat, and they said it was Mehemet Ali Ben 
Sancom. I said it would be a good idea to get some 
more garrisons to help him ; but they said no ; he 
had nothing to do but hold the place, and he was 
competent to do that; had done it two years 
already. That was evidence which one could not 
<vell refute. There is nothing like reputation. 

Every now and then, my glove purchase in Gib- 
raltar last night intrudes itself upon me. Dan and 
the ship's surgeon and I had been up to the great 
square, listening to the music of the fine military 
bands, and contemplating English and Spanish 
female loveliness and fashion, and, at 9 o'clock, 
were on our way to the theater, when we met the 
General, the Judge, the Commodore, the Colonel, 
and the Commissioner of the United States of 
America to Europe, Asia, and Africa, who had been 



The Innocents AbroJld 109 

to the Club House, to register their several titles 
and impoverish the bill of fare ; and they told us to 
go over to the little variety store, near the Hall of 
Justice, and buy some kid gloves. They said they 
were elegant, and very moderate in price. It seemed 
a stylish thing to go to the theater in kid gloves, 
and we acted upon the hint. A very handsome 
young lady in the store offered me a pair of blue 
gloves. I did not want blue, but she said they 
would look very pretty on a hand like mine. The 
remark touched me tenderly. I glanced furtively at 
my hand, and somehow it did seem rather a comely 
member. I tried a glove on my left, and blushed a 
little. Manifestly i;he size A^as too small for me. 
But I felt gratified when she said : 

•* Oh, it is just right!" — yet I knew it was no 
such thing. 

I tugged at it diligently, but it was discouraging 
work. She said: 

* * Ah ! I see you are accustomed to wearing kid 
gloves — but some gentlemen are so awkward about 
putting them on.** 

It was the last compliment I had expected. I 
only understand putting on the buckskin article 
perfectly, I made another effort, and tore the glove 
from the base of the thumb into the paln^ot the 
hand — and tried to hide the rent. She kept up her 
compliments, and I kept up my determination to 
deserve them or die : 

** Ah, you have had experience!'* [A rip down 



HO The Innocents Abroad 

the back of the hand.] *' They are just right for 
you — your hand is very small — if they tear you 
need not pay for them." [A rent across the mid- 
dle.] ** I can always tell when a gentleman under- 
stands putting on kid gloves. There is a grace 
about it that only comes with long practice." 
[The whole after guard of the glove * * fetched 
away," as the sailors say, the fabric parted across 
the knuckles, and nothing was left but a melancholy 
ruin.] 

I was too much flattered to make an exposure, 
and throw the merchandise on the angel's hands. I 
was hot, vexed, confused, but still happy; but I 
hated the other boys for taking such an absorbing 
interest in the proceedings. I wished they were in 
Jericho. I felt exquisitely mean when I said cheer- 
fully: 

**This one does very well; it fits elegantly. I 
like a glove that fits. No, never mind, ma'am, 
never mind; I'll put the other on in the street. It 
is warm here." 

It was warm. It was the warmest place I ever 
was in. I paid the bill, and as I passed out with a 
fascinating bow, I thought I detected a light in the 
woman's eye that was gently ironical ; and when I 
looked back from the street, and she was laughing 
all to herself about something or other, I said to 
myself, with withering sarcasm, ** Oh, certainly; you 
know how to put on kid gloves, don't you?- — a self- 
complacent ass, ready to be flattered out of your 



The Innocents Abroad 111 

senses by every petticoat that chooses to take the 
trouble to do it!" 

The silence of the boys annoyed me. Finally, 
Dan said, musingly: 

** Some gentlemen don't know how to put on kid 
gloves at all; but some do." 

And the doctor said (to the moon, I thought) : 

* * But it is always easy to tell when a gentleman is 
used to putting on kid gloves.** 

Dan soliloquized, after a pause: 

**Ah, yes; there is a grace about it that only 
comes with long, very long practice.'* 

** Yes, indeed, I've noticed that when a man hauls 
on a kid glove like he was dragging a cat out of an 
ash-hole by the tail, he understands putting on kid 
gloves ; he's had ex — -— * * 

** Boys, enough of a thing's enough ! You think 
you are very smart, I suppose, but I don't. And if 
you go and tell any of those old gossips in the ship 
about this thing, I'll never forgive you for it; that's 
all.** 

They let me alone then, for the time being. We 
always let each other alone in time to prevent ill 
feeling from spoiling a joke. But they had bought 
gloves, too, as I did. We threw all the purchases 
away together this morning. They were coarse, 
unsubstantial, freckled all over with broad yellow 
splotches, and could neither stand wear nor public 
exhibition. We had entertained an angel unawares, 
but we did not take her in. She did that for us. 



112 The Innocents Abroad 

Tangier ! A tjibe of stalwart Moors are wading 
into the sea to carry us ashore on their backs from 
the small boats. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

'"pHIS IS royal ! Let those who went up through 
1 Spain make the best of it — these dominions of 
the Emperor of Morocco suit our little party well 
enough. We have had enough of Spain at Gibraltar 
for the present. Tangier is the spot we have been 
longing for all the time. Elsewhere we have found 
foreign-looking things and foreign-looking people, 
but alv/ays with things and people intermixed that 
we were familiar with before, and so the novelty of 
the situation lost a deal of its force. We wanted 
something thoroughly and uncompromisingly foreign 
— foreign from top to bottom — foreign from center 
to circumference — foreign inside and outside and 
all around — nothing anywhere about it to dilute its 
foreignness — nothing to remind us of any other 
people or any other land under the sun. And lo ! 
in Tangier we have found it. Here is not the slight- 
est thing that ever we have seen save in pictures — 
and we always mistrusted the pictures before. We 
can not any more. The pictures used to seem ex- 
aggerations — they seemed too weird and fanciful for 
reality. But behold, they were not wild enough — 
8. (113) 



114 The Innocents Abroad 

they were not fanciful enough — they have not told 
half the story, Tangier is a foreign land if ever 
there was one ; and the true spirit of it can never 
be found in any book save the Arabian Nights. 
Here are no white men visible, yet swarms of 
humanity are all about us. Here is a packed and 
jammed city inclosed in a massive stone wall which 
is more than a thousand years old. All the houses 
nearly are one and two story ; made of thick walls 
of stone ; plastered outside ; square as a dry-goods 
box ; flat as a floor on top ; no cornices ; white- 
washed all over — a crowded city of snowy tombs ! 
And the doors are arched with a peculiar arch we 
see in Moorish pictures ; the floors are laid in vari- 
colored diamond flags ; in tessellated many-colored 
porcelain squares wrought in the furnaces of Fez; 
in red tiles and broad bricks that time cannot wear ; 
there is no furniture in the rooms (of Jewish dwel- 
lings) save divans — what there is in Moorish ones 
no man may know; within their sacred walls no 
Christian dog can enter. And the streets are ori- 
ental — some of them three feet wide, some six, but 
only two that are over a dozen ; a man can blockade 
the most of them by extending his body across them. 
Isn't it an oriental picture? 

There are stalwart Bedouins of the desert here, and 
stately Moors, proud of a history that goes back to 
the night of time; and Jews, whose fathers fled 
hither centuries upon centuries ago ; and swarthy 
Riflians from the mountains — born cutthroats — and 



The Innocents Abroad 115 

original, genuine negroes, as black as Moses; and 
howling dervishes, and a hundred breeds of Arabs 
— all sorts and descriptions of people that are foreign 
and curious to look upon. 

And their dresses are strange beyond all descrip- 
tion. Here is a bronzed Moor in a prodigious white 
turban, curiously embroidered jacket, gold and crim- 
son sash of many folds, wrapped round and round 
his waist, trowsers that only come a little below his 
knee, and yet have twenty yards of stuff in them, 
ornamented scimetar, bare shins, stockingless feet, 
yellow slippers, and gun of preposterous length — a 
mere soldier ! — I thought he was the Emperor at 
least. And here are aged Moors with flowing white 
beards, and long white robes with vast cowls; and 
Bedouins with long, cowled, striped cloaks, and 
negroes and Riffians with heads clean-shaven, except 
a kinky scalp-lock back of the ear, or rather up on 
the after corner of the skull, and all sorts of bar- 
barians in all sorts of weird costumes, and all more 
or less ragged. And here are Moorish women who 
are enveloped from head to foot in coarse white 
robes and whose sex can only be determined by the 
fact that they only leave one eye visible, and never 
look at men of their own race, or are looked at by 
them in public. Here are five thousand Jews in blue 
gaberdines, sashes about their waists, slippers upon 
their feet, little skull-caps upon the backs of their 
heads, hair combed down on the forehead, and cut 
straight across the middle of it from side to side — 



116 The Innocents Abroad 

the self-same fashion their Tangier ancestors have 
worn for I don*t know how many bewildermg cen- 
turies. Their feet and ankles are bare. Their noses 
are all hooked, and hooked alike. They all resemble 
each other so much that one could almost believe 
they were of one family. Their women are plump 
and pretty, and do smile upon a Christian in a way 
which is in the last degree comforting. 

What a funny old town it is ! It seems like pro- 
fanation to laugh and jest and bandy the frivolous 
chat of our day amid its hoary relics. Only the 
stately phraseology and the measured speech of the 
sons of the Prophet are suited to a venerable 
antiquity like this. Here is a crumbling wall that 
was old when Columbus discovered America; was 
old when Peter the Hermit roused the knightly men 
of the Middle Ages to arm for the first Crusade ; 
was old when Charlemagne and his paladins be- 
leaguered enchanted castles and battled with giants 
and genii in the fabled days of the olden time ; was 
old when Christ and his disciples walked the earth ; 
stood where it stands to-day when the lips of 
Memnon were vocal, and men bought and sold in 
the streets of ancient Thebes I 

The Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, the English, 
Moors, Romans, all have battled for Tangier — all 
have won it and lost it. Here is a ragged, oriental- 
looking negro from some desert place in interior 
Africa, filling his goat-skin with water from a stained 
%j[id battered fountain built by the Romans twelve 



The innocents Abroad 117 

hundred years ago. Yonder is a ruined arch of a 
bridge built by Julius Caesar nineteen hundred years 
ago. Men who had seen the infant Saviour in the 
Virgin's arms have stood upon it, may be. 

Near it are the ruins of a dockyard where Csesar 
repaired his ships and loaded them with grain when 
he invaded Britain, fifty years before the Christian 
era. 

Here, under the quiet stars, these old streets 
seemed thronged with the phantoms of forgotten 
ages. My eyes are resting upon a spot where stood 
a monument which was seen and described by 
Roman historians less than two thousand years ago, 
whereon was inscribed : 

**We are the Canaanites. We are they 
that have been driven out of the land of 
Canaan by the Jewish robber, Joshua." 

Joshua drove them out, and they came here. Not 
many leagues from here is a tribe of Jews whose 
ancestors fled thither after an unsuccessful revolt 
against King David, and these their descendants are 
still under a ban and keep to themselves. 

Tangier has been mentioned in history for three 
thousand years. And it was a town, though a queer 
one, when Hercules, clad in his lion-skin, landed 
here, four thousand years ago. In these streets he 
met Anytus, the king of the country, and brained 
him with his club, which was the fashion among gen- 
tlemen in those days. The people of Tangier (called 



118 The Innocents Abroad 

Tingis, then) lived in the rudest possible huts, and 
dressed in skins and carried clubs, and were as sav- 
age as the wild beasts they were constantly obliged 
to war with. But they were a gentlemanly race, 
and did no work. They lived on the natural pro- 
ducts of the land. Their king's country residence 
was at the famous Garden of Hesperides, seventy 
miles down the coast from here. The garden, with 
Its golden apples (oranges), is gone now — no 
vestige of it remains. Antiquarians concede that 
such a personage as Hercules did exist in ancient 
times, and agree that he was an enterprising and 
energetic man, but decline to believe him a good, 
bona fide god, because that would be unconstitu* 
tional. 

Down here at Cape Spartel is the celebrated cave 
of Hercules, where that hero took refuge when he was 
vanquished and driven out of the Tangier country. 
It is full of inscriptions in the dead languages, which 
fact makes me think Hercules could not have traveled 
much, else he would not have kept a journal. 

Five days* journey from here — say two hundred 
miles — are the ruins of an ancient city, of whose 
history there is neither record nor tradition. And yet 
its arches, its columns, and its statues, proclaim it 
to have been built by an enlightened race. 

The general size of a store in Tangier is about that 
of an ordinary shower-bath in a civilized land. The 
Mohammedan merchant, tinman, shoemaker, or ven- 
der of trifles, sits cross-legged on the floor, and 



The Innocents Abroad 119 

reaches after any article you may want to buy. You 
can rent a whoie block of these pigeon-holes for fifty 
dollars a month. The market people crowd the 
market-place with their baskets of figs, dates, melons, 
apricots, etc., and among them file trains of laden 
asses, not much larger, if any, than a Newfoundland 
dog. The scene is lively, is picturesque, and smells 
like a police court. The Jewish money-changers 
have their dens close at hand ; and all day long are 
counting bronze coins and transferring them from 
one bushel basket to another. They don't coin 
much money now-a-days, I think. I saw none but 
what was dated four or five hundred years back, and 
was badly worn and battered. These coins are not 
very valuable. Jack went out to get a napoleon 
changed, so as to have money suited to the general 
cheapness of things, and came back and said he had 
** swamped the bank; had bought eleven quarts of 
coin, and the head of the firm had gone on the street 
to negotiate for the balance of the change.** I 
bought nearly half a pint of their money for a shil- 
ling myself. I am not proud on account of having 
so much money, though. I care nothing for wealth. 
The Moors have some small silver coins, and also 
some silver slugs worth a dollar each. The latter 
are exceedingly scarce — so much so that when poor 
ragged Arabs see one they beg to be allowed to kiss it. 
They have also a small gold coin worth two dol- 
lars. And that reminds me of something. When 
Morocco is in a state of war, Arab couriers carry 



1^0 The Innocents Abroad 

letters through the country, and charge a liberal 
postage. Every now and then they fall into the 
hands of marauding bands and get robbed. There- 
fore, warned by experience, as soon as they have 
collected two dollars' worth of money they exchange 
it for one of those little gold pieces, and when rob- 
bers come upon them, swallow it. The stratagem 
was good while it was unsuspected, but after that the 
marauders simply gave the sagacious United States 
mail an emetic and sat down to wait. 

The Emperor of Morocco is a soulless despot, and 
the great officers under him are despots on a smaller 
scale. There is no regular system of taxation, but 
when the Emperor or the Bashaw want money, they 
levy on some rich man, and he has to furnish the 
cash or go to prison. Therefore, few men in Morocco 
dare to be rich. It is too dangerous a luxury. 
Vanity occasionally leads a man to display wealth, 
but sooner or later the Emperor trumps up a charge 
against him — any sort of one will do — and confis- 
cates his property. Of course, there are many rich 
men in the empire, but their money is buried, and 
they dress in rags and counterfeit poverty. Every 
now and then the Emperor imprisons a man who is 
suspected of the crime of being rich, and makes 
things so uncomfortable for him that he is forced to 
discover where he has hidden his money. 

Moors and Jews sometimes place themselves under 
the protection of the foreign consuls, and then they can 
flout their riches in the Emperor's face with impunity- 



CHAPTER IX. 

ABOUT the first adventure we had yesterday after- 
noon, after landing here, came near finishing 
that heedless Blucher. We had just mounted some 
mules and asses, and started out under the guardian- 
ship of the stately, the princely, the magnificent 
Hadji Mohammed Lamarty (may his tribe increase !), 
when we came upon a fine Moorish mosque, with tall 
tower, rich with checker-work of many-colored por- 
celain, and every part and portion of the edifice 
adorned with the quaint architecture of the Alham- 
bra, and Blucher started to ride into the open door- 
way. A startling '*Hi-hi ! '* from our camp follow- 
ers, and a loud '* Halt! " from an English gentle- 
man in the party, checked the adventurer, and then 
we were informed that so dire a profanation is it for 
a Christian dog to set foot upon the sacred threshold 
of a Moorish mosque, that no amount of purification 
can ever make it fit for the faithful to pray in again. 
Had Blucher succeeded in entering the place, he 
would no doubt have been chased through the town 
and stoned ; and the time has been, and not many 
years ago either, when a Christian would have been 

(121) 



122 The Innocents Abroad 

most ruthlessly slaughtered, if captured in a mosque. 
We caught a glimpse of the handsome tessellated 
pavements within, and of the devotees performing 
their ablutions at the fountains; but even that we 
took that glimpse was a thing not relished by the 
Moorish bystanders. 

Some years ago the clock in the tower of the 
mosque got out of order. The Moors of Tangier 
have so degenerated that it has been long since 
there was an artificer among them capable of curing 
so delicate a patient as a debilitated clock. The 
great men of the city met in solemn conclave to con- 
sider how the difficulty was to be met. They dis- 
cussed the matter thoroughly but arrived at no solu- 
tion. Finally, a patriarch arose and said : 

*' Oh, children of the Prophet, it is known unto 
you that a Portuguee dog of a Christian clockmender 
pollutes the city of Tangier with his presence. Ye 
know, also, that when mosques are builded, asses 
bear the stones and the cement, and cross the sacred 
threshold. Now, therefore, send the Christian dog 
on all fours, and barefoot, into the holy place to 
mend the clock, and let him go as an ass ! " 

And in that way it was done. Therefore, if 
Blucher ever sees the inside of a mosque, he will 
have to cast aside his humanity and go in his natural 
character. We visited the jail, and found Moorish 
prisoners making mats and baskets. (This thing of 
utilizing crime savors of civilization.) Murder is 
punished with death. A short time ago three mur 



The Innocents Abroad 



123 



derers were taken beyond the city walls and shot. 
Moorish guns are not good, and neither are Moorish 
marksmen. In this instance, they set up the poor 
criminals at long range, like so many targets, and 
practiced on them — kept them hopping about and 
dodging bullets for half an hour before they man- 
aged to drive the center. 

When a man steals cattle, they cut off his right 
hand and left leg, and nail them up in the market- 
place as a warning to everybody. Their surgery is 
not artistic. They slice around the bone a little; 
then break off the limb. Sometimes the patient gets 
well; but, as a general thing, he don't. However, 
the Moorish heart is stout. The Moors were always 
brave. These criminals undergo the fearful opera- 
^ tion without a wince, without a tremor of any kind, 
without a groan ! No amount of suffering can bring 
down the pride of a Moor, or make him shame his 
dignity with a cry. 

Here, marriage is contracted by the parents of the 
parties to it. There are no valentines, no stolen 
interviews, no riding out, no courting in dim parlors, 
no lovers* quarrels and reconciliations — no nothing 
that is proper to approaching matrimony. The 
young man takes the girl his father selects for him, 
marries her, and after that she is unveiled, and he 
sees her for the first time. If, after due acquaintance, 
she suits him, he retains her; but if he suspects hef 
purity, he bundles her back to her father; if he finds 
her diseased, the same; or if, after just and reason 



124 The Innocents Abroad 

able time is allowed her, she neglects to bear chil- 
dren, back she goes to the home of her childhood. 

Mohammedans here, who can afford it, keep a 
good many wives on hand. They are called wives, 
though I believe the Koran only allows four genuine 
wives — the rest are concubines. The Emperor of 
Morocco don't know how many wives he has, but 
thinks he has five hundred. However, that is near 
enough — a dozen or so, one way or the other, don't 
matter. 

Even the Jews in the interior have a plurality of 
wives. 

I have caught a glimpse of the faces of several 
Moorish women (for they are only human, and will 
expose their faces for the admiration of a Christian 
dog when no male Moor is by), and I am full of 
veneration for the wisdom that leads them to cover 
up such atrocious ugliness. 

They carry their children at their backs, in a sack, 
like other savages the world over. 

Many of the negroes are held in slavery by the 
Moors. But the moment a female slave becomes 
her master's concubine her bonds are broken, and 
as soon as a male slave can read the first chapter of 
the Koran (which contains the creed) he can no 
longer be held in bondage. 

They have three Sundays a week in Tangier. The 
Mohammedan's comes on Friday, the Jew's on 
Saturday, and that of the Christian Consuls on Sun- 
day. The Jews are the most radical. The Moor 



The Innocents Abroad 125 

goes to his mosque about noon on his Sabbath, as 
on any other day, removes his shoes at the door, 
performs his ablutions, makes his salaams, pressing 
his forehead to the pavement time and again, says 
his prayers, and goes back to his work. 

But the Jew shuts up shop ; will not touch copper 
or bronze money at all ; soils his fingers with nothing 
meaner than silver and gold ; attends the synagogue 
devoutly ; will not cook or have anything to do with 
fire ; and religiously refrains from embarking in any 
enterprise. 

The Moor who has made a pilgrimage to Mecca is 
entitled to high distinction. Men call him Hadji, 
and he is thenceforward a great personage. Hun- 
dreds of Moors come to Tangier every year, and 
embark for Mecca. They go part of the way in 
English steamers ; and the ten or twelve dollars they 
pay for passage is about all the trip costs. They 
take with them a quantity of food, and when the 
commissary department fails they ** skirmish," as 
Jack terms it in his sinful, slangy way. From the 
time they leave till they get home again, they never 
wash, either on land or sea. They are usually gone 
from five to seven months, and as they do not 
change their clothes during all that time, they are 
totally unfit for the drawing-room when they get 
back. 

Many of them have to rake and scrape a long 
time to gather together the ten dollars their steamer 
passage costs; and when one of them gets back he 



126 'fhe Knnocents Abroad 

is a bankrupt forever after. Few Moors can ever 
build up their fortunes again in one short lifetime, 
after so reckless an outlay. In order to confine the 
dignity of Hadji to gentlemen of patrician blood and 
possessions, the Emperor decreed that no man 
should make the pilgrimage save bloated aristocrats 
who were worth a hundred dollars in specie. But 
behold how iniquity can circumvent the law ! For a 
consideration, the Jewish money-changer lends the 
pilgrim one hundred dollars long enough for him to 
swear himself through, and then receives it back be- 
fore the ship sails out of the harbor ! 

Spain is the only nation the Moors fear. The 
reason is, that Spain sends her heaviest ships of war 
and her loudest guns to astonish these Moslems; 
while America, and other nations, send only a little 
contemptible tub of a gunboat occasionally. The 
Moors, like other savages, learn by what they see ; 
not what they hear or read. We have great fleets in 
the Mediterranean, but they seldom touch at African 
ports. The Moors have a small opinion of England, 
France, and America, and put their representatives 
to a deal of red-tape circumlocution before they 
grant them their common rights, let alone a favor. 
But the moment the Spanish minister makes a de- 
mand, it is acceded to at once, whether it be just 
or not. 

Spain chastised the Moors five or six years ago, 
about a disputed piece of property opposite Gib- 
raltar, and captured the citv of Tetouan. She com* 



The Innocents Abroad 127 

promised on an augmentation of her territory; 
twenty million dollars indemnity in money; and 
peace. And then she gave up the city. But she 
never gave it up until the Spanish soldiers had eaten 
up all the cats. They would not compromise as long 
as the cats held out. Spaniards are very fond of 
cats. On the contrary, the Moors reverence cats as 
something sacred. So the Spaniards touched them 
on a tender point that time. Their unfeline conduct 
in eating up all the Tetouan cats aroused a hatred 
toward them in the breasts of the Moors, to which 
even the driving them out of Spain was tame and 
passionless. Moors and Spaniards are foes forever 
now. France had a minister here once who embit- 
tered the nation against him in the most innocent 
way. He killed a couple of battalions of cats (Tan- 
gier is full of them) and made a parlor carpet out of 
their hides. He made his carpet in circles — first a 
circle of old gray tom-cats, with their tails all point- 
ing toward the center ; then a circle of yellow cats ; 
next a circle of black cats and a circle of white ones ; 
then a circle of all sorts of cats; and, finally, a 
centerpiece of assorted kittens. It was very beauti- 
ful ; but the Moors curse his memory to this day^ 

When we went to call on our American Consul- 
general, to-day, I noticed that all possible games for 
parlor amusement seemed to be represented on his 
center-tables. I thought that hinted at lonesome- 
?iess. The idea was correct. His is the only 
American family in Ta/igier, There are many 



128 The Innocents Abroad 

foreign Consuls in this place ; but much visiting is 
not indulged in. Tangier is clear out of the world, 
and what is the use of visiting when people have 
nothing on earth to talk about? There is none. So 
each consul's family stays at home chiefly, and 
amuses itself as best it can. Tangier is full of inter- 
est for one day, but after that it is a weary prison. 
The consul-general has been here five years, and has 
got enough of it to do him for a century, and is 
going home shortly. His family seize upon their 
letters and papers when the mail arrives, read them 
over and over again for two days or three, talk them 
over and over again for two or three more, till they 
wear them out, and after that, for days together, 
they eat and drink and sleep, and ride out over the 
same old road, and see the same old tiresome things 
that even decades of centuries have scarcely changed, 
and say never a single word ! They have literally 
nothing whatever to talk about. The arrival of an 
American man-of-war is a godsend to them. * * Oh, 
solitude, where are the charms which sages have 
seen in thy face?" It is the completest exile that I 
can conceive of. I would seriously recommend to 
the government of the United States that when a 
man commits a crime so heinous that the law pro- 
vides no adequate punishment for it, they make him 
consul-general to Tangier. 

I am glad to have seen Tangier — the second 
oldest town in the world. But I am ready to bid it 
good-bye r I believe. 



The Innocents Abroad 129 

We shall go hence to Gibraltar this evening or in 
the morning; and doubtless the Quaker City will sail 
from that port within the next forty-eight hours. 

9 



CHAPTER X. 

WE passed the Fourth of July on board the 
Quaker City^ in mid-ocean. It was in all re- 
spects a characteristic Mediterranean day — fault- 
lessly beautiful. A cloudless sky; a refreshing 
summer wind; a radiant sunshine that glinted 
cheerily from dancing wavelets instead of crested 
mountains of water; a sea beneath us that was so 
wonderfully blue, so richly, brilliantly blue, that it 
overcame the dullest sensibilities with the spell of 
its fascination. 

They even have fine sunsets on the Mediterranean 
— a thing that is certainly rare in most quarters of 
the globe. The evening we sailed away from Gib- 
raltar, that hard-featured rock was swimming in a 
creamy mist so rich, so soft, so enchantingly vague 
and dreamy, that even the Oracle, that serene, that 
inspired, that overpowering humbug, scorned the 
dinner-gong and tarried to worship ! 

He said: **Well, that's gorgis, ain*t it! They 
don't have none of them things in our parts, do 
they? I consider that them effects is on account of 
the superior refragability, as you may say, of the 



The Innocents Abroad I3I 

sun's diramic combination with the lymphatic forces 
of the perihelion of Jubiter. What should you 
think?" 

** Oh, go to bed!** Dan said that, and went 
away. 

** Oh, yes, it*s all very well to say go to bed when 
a man makes an argument which another man can't 
answer. Dan don't never stand any chance in an 
argument with me. And he knows it, too. What 
should you say, Jack?" 

*' Now, doctor, don't you come bothering around 
me with that dictionary bosh. I don't do you any 
harm, do I? Then you let me alone." 

**He's gone, too. Well, them fellows have all 
tackled the old Oracle, as they say, but the old 
man's most too many for 'em. Maybe the Poet 
Lariat ain't satisfied with them deductions?" 

The poet replied with a barbarous rhyme, and 
went below. 

** 'Pears that he can't qualify, neither. Well, I 
didn't expect nothing out of him, I never see one 
of them poets yet that knowed anything. He'll 
go down, now, and grind out about four reams of 
the awfullest slush about that old rock, and give it 
to a consul or a pilot or a nigger, or anybody he 
comes across first which he can impose on. Pity 
but somebody' d take that poor old lunatic and dig 
all that poetry rubbage out of him. Why can't a 
man put his intellect onto things that's some value? 
Gibbons and Hippocratus and Sarcophagus, and 



132 The Innocents Abroad 

all them old ancient philosophers, was down on 
poets '* 

** Doctor/' I said, **you are going to invent 
authorities now, and I'll leave you, too. I always 
enjoy your conversation, notwithstanding the luxuri- 
ance of your syllables, when the philosophy you 
offer rests on your own responsibility ; but when you- 
begin to soar — when you begin to support it with 
the evidence of authorities who are the creations of 
your own fancy, I lose confidence." 

That was the way to flatter the doctor. He con- 
sidered it a sort of acknowledgment on my part of a 
fear to argue with him. He was always persecuting 
the passengers with abstruse propositions framed in 
language that no man could understand, and they 
endured the exquisite torture a minute or two and 
then abandoned the field. A triumph like this, over 
half a dozen antagonists, was sufficient for one day; 
from that time forward he would patrol the decks 
beaming blandly upon all comers, and so tranquilly, 
blissfully happy ! 

But I digress. The thunder of our two brave 
cannon announced the Fourth of July, at daylight, 
to all who were awake. But many of us got cur 
information at a later hour, from the almanac. All 
the flags were sent aloft, except half a dozen that 
were needed to decorate portions of the ship below, 
and in a short time the vessel assumed a holiday ap- 
pearance. During the morning, meetings were held 
jmd all manner of committees set to work on the 



1lie Iniidcents Abroad 13} 

celebration ceremonies. In the afternoon the ship*^ 
company assembled aft, on deck, under the awnings ; 
the flute, the asthmatic melodeon, and the consump- 
tive clarinet, crippled the Star Spangled Banner, the 
choir chased it to cover, and George came in with a 
peculiarly lacerating screech on the final note and 
"slaughtered it. Nobody mourned. 

We carried out the corpse on three cheers (that 
joke was not intentional and I do not indorse it) , and 
then the President, throned behind a cable-locker 
with a national flag spread over it, announced the 
** Reader," who rose up and read that same old 
Declaration of Independence which we have all 
listened to so often without paying any attention to 
what it said ; and after that the President piped the 
Orator of the Day to quarters and he made that 
same old speech about our national greatness which 
we so religiously believe and so fervently applaud. 
Now came the choir into court again, with the com- 
plaining instruments, and assaulted Hail Columbia; 
and when victory hung wavering in the scale, George 
returned with his dreadful wild-goose stop turned on, 
and the choir won, of course. A minister pro- 
nounced the benediction, and the patriotic Httle 
gathering disbanded. The Fourth of July was safe, 
as far as the Mediterranean was concerned. 

At dinner in the evening, a well-written original 
poem was recited with spirit by one of the ship's 
captains, and thirteen regular toasts were washed 
down with several baskets of champagne. The 



134 the Innocents Abroad 

speeches were bad — execrable, almost without ex- 
ception. In fact, without any exception, but one. 
Captain Duncan made a good speech ; he made the 
only good speech of the evening. He said: 

•' Ladies and Gentlemen; — May we all live to 
a green old age, and be prosperous and happy. 
Steward, bring up another basket of champagne." 

It was regarded as a very able effort. 

The festivities, so to speak, closed with another of 
those miraculous balls on the promenade deck. We 
were not used to dancing on an even keel, though, 
and it was only a questionable success. But take it 
altogether, it was a bright, cheerful, pleasant Fourth. 

Toward nightfall, the next evening, we steamed 
into the great artificial harbor of this noble city of 
Marseilles, and saw the dying sunlight gild its 
clustering spires and ramparts, and flood its leagues 
of environing verdure with a mellow radiance that 
touched with an added charm the white villas that 
flecked the landscape far and near. [Copyright 
secured according to law.] 

There were no stages out, and we could not get 
on the pier from the ship. It was annoying. We 
were full of enthusiasm — we wanted to see France ! 
Just at nightfall our party of three contracted with a 
waterman for the privilege of using his boat as a 
bridge — its stern was at our companion ladder and 
its bow touched the pier. We got in and the fellow 
backed out into the harbor. I told him in French 
that all we wanted was to walk over his thwarts and 



The Innocents Abroad 135 

step ashore, and asked him what he went away out 
there for? He said he could not understand me. I 
repeated. Still, he could not understand. He ap- 
peared to be very ignorant of French. The doctor 
tried him, but he could not understand the doctor* 
I asked this boatman to explain his conduct, which 
he did; and then I couldn't understand him, Dan 
said: 

** Oh, go to the pier, you old fool — that's where 
we want to go ! " 

We reasoned calmly with Dan that it was useless 
to speak to this foreigner in English — that he had 
better let us conduct this business in the French 
language and not let the stranger see how unculti- 
vated he was. 

** Well, go on, go on," he said, ** don't mind me. 
I don't wish to interfere. Only, if you go on telling 
him in your kind of French he never will find out 
where we want to go to. That is what I think about 
it." 

We rebuked him severely for this remark, and said 
we never knew an ignorant person yet but was 
prejudiced. The Frenchman spoke again, and the 
doctor said: 

** There, now, Dan, he says he is going to allez to 
the douain. Means he is going to the hotel. Oh, 
certainly — we don't know the French language." 

This was a crusher, as Jack would say. It 
silenced further criticism from the disaffected mem- 
ber. We coasted past the sharp bows of a navy of 



.-'^ 



136 The Innocents Abroad 

great steamships, and stopped at last at a govern- 
ment building on a stone pier. It was easy to re- 
member then that the doiiain was the custom-house, 
and not the hotel. We did not mention it, how- 
ever. With winning French politeness, the officers 
merely opened and closed our satchels, declined to 
examine our passports, and sent us on our way. 
We stopped at the first cafe we came to, and en- 
tered. An old woman seated us at a table and 
waited for orders. The doctor said : 

'* Avez-vous du vin?'* 

The dame looked perplexed. The doctor said 
again, with elaborate distinctness of articulation: 

* * Avez-vous du — vin ! ' * 

The dame looked more perplexed than before. I 
said : '^ 

** Doctor, there is a' flaw in your pronunciation 
somewhere. Let me try her. Madame, avez-vous 
du vin? It isn't any use, doctor — take the wit- 
ness.'* 

** Madame, avez-vous du vin — ou fromage — 
pain — pickled pigs' feet — beurre — des oefs — du 
beuf — horseradish, sour-crout, hog and hominy — 
anything, a7iythi7ig in the world that can stay a 
Christian stomach!'* 

She said : 

** Bless you, why didn't you speak English be- 
fore? — I don't know anything about your plagued 
French!'* 

The humiliating taunts of the disaffected member 



The Innocents Abroad 137 

spoiled the supper, and we dispatched it in angry 
silence and got away as soon as we could. Here 
we were in beautiful France — in a vast stone house 
of quaint architecture — surrounded by all manner 
of curiously worded French signs — stared at by 
strangely-habited, bearded French people — every- 
thing gradually and surely forcing upon us the cov- 
eted consciousness that at last, and beyond all ques- 
tion, we were in beautiful France and absorbing its 
nature to the forgetfulness of everything else, and 
coming to feel the happy romance of the thing in 
all its enchanting delightfulness — and to think of 
this skinny veteran intruding with her vile English, 
at such a moment, to blow the fair vision to the 
winds ! It was exasperating. 

We set out to find the center of the city. In- 
quiring the direction every now and then. We 
never did succeed in making anybody understand 
just exactly what we wanted, and neither did we 
ever succeed in comprehending just exactly what 
they said in reply — but then they always pointed — 
they always did that, and we bowed politely and 
said **MercI, Monsieur,'* and so It was a blighting 
triumph over the disaffected member, anyway. He 
was restive under these victories and often asked : 

•• What did that pirate say?" 

** Why, he told us which way to go, to find the 
Grand Casino.'* 

*' Yes, but what did he say f" 

"Oh, it don't matter what he said — ze/^ under- 



138 The Innocents Abroad 

stood him. These are educated people — not like 
that absurd boatman/' 

*• Well, I wish they were educated enough to tell 
a man a direction that goes somewhere — for we've 
been going around in a circle for an hour — I've 
passed this same old drug store seven times.** 

We said it was a low, disreputable falsehood (but 
we knew it was not). It was plain that it would not 
do to pass that drug store again, though — we might 
go on asking directions, but we must cease from 
following finger pointings if we hoped to check the 
suspicions of the disaffected member. 

A long walk through smooth, asphaltum-paved 
streets, bordered by blocks of vast new mercantile 
houses of cream-colored stone,— -every house and 
every block precisely like all the other houses and 
all the other blocks for a mile, and all brilliantly 
lighted,— brought us at last to the principal 
thoroughfare. On every hand were bright colors, 
flashing constellations of gas-burners, gaily-dressed 
men and women thronging the sidewalks — hurry, 
life, activity, cheerfulness, conversation, and laughter 
everywhere 1 We found the Grand Hotel du Louvre 
et de la Paix, and wrote down who we were, where 
we were born, what our occupations were, the place 
we came from last, whether we were married or 
single, how we liked it, how old we were, where we 
were bound for and when we expected to get there, 
and a great deal of information of similar importance 
— all for the benefit of the landlord and the secret 



« 



*l 



The Innocents Abroad I39 

police. We hired a guide and began the business of 
sight-seeing immediately. That first night on French 
soil was a stirring one. I cannot think of half the 
places we went to, or what we particularly saw; we 
ha3 no disposition to examine carefully into any- 
thing at all — we only wanted to glance and go - — to 
move, keep moving! The spirit of the country was 
upon us. We sat down, finally, at a late hour, in 
the great Casino, and called for unstinted cham- 
pagne. It is so easy to be bloated aristocrats where 
it costs nothing of consequence ! There were about 
five hundred people in that dazzling place, I sup- 
pose, though the walls being papered entirely with 
mirrors, so to speak, one could not really tell but 
that there were a hundred thousand. Young, 
daintily-dressed exquisites and young, stylishly- 
dressed women, and also old gentlemen and old 
ladies, sat in couples and groups about innumerable 
marble-topped tables, and ate fancy suppers, drank 
wine, and kept up a chattering din of conversation 
that was dazing to the senses. There was a stage at 
the far end, and a large orchestra; and every now 
and then actors and actresses in preposterous comic 
dresses came out and sang the most extravagantly 
funny songs, to judge by their absurd actions ; but 
that audience merely suspended its chatter, stared 
cynically, and never once smiled, never once ap- 
plauded ! I had always thought that Frenchmen 
were ready to laugh at anything. 






CHAPTER XI. 



WE are getting forelgnized rapidly, and with 
facility. We are getting reconciled to halls 
and bed-chambers with unhomelike stone floors, and 
no carpets — floors that ring to the tread of one's 
heels with a sharpness that Is death to sentimental 
musing. We are getting used to tidy, noiseless 
waiters, who glide hither and thither, and hover 
about your back and your elbows like butterflieSj 
quick to comprehend orders, quick to fill them; 
thankful for a gratuity without regard to the amount ; 
and always polite — never otherwise than polite. 
That is the strangest curiosity yet — a really polite 
hotel waiter who isn't an idiot. W^e are getting 
used to driving right into the central court of the 
hotel, in the midst of a fragrant circle of vines and 
flov/ers, and in the midst, also, of parties of gentle- 
men sitting quietly reading the paper and smoking. 
We are getting used to ice frozen by artificial process 
in ordinary bottles — the only kind of ice they have 
herCc We are getting used to all these things ; but 
we are not getting used to carrying our own soap. 
We are sufficiently civilized to carry our own combs 

(140) 



The Innocents Abroad 



141 



and tooth-brushes ; but this thing of having to ring 
for soap every time we wash is new to us, and not 
pleasant at all. We think of it just after we get our 
heads and faces thoroughly wet, or just when we 
think we have been in the bath-tub long enough, 
and then, of course, an annoying delay follows. 
These Marseillaise make Marseillaise hymns, and 
Marseilles vests, and Marseilles soap for all the 
world; but they never sing their hymns, or wear 
their vests, or wash with their soap themselves. 

We have learned to go through the lingering 
routine of the table d'hote with patience, with 
serenity, with satisfaction. We take soup; then 
wait a few minutes for the fish ; a few minutes more 
and the plates are changed, and the roast beef 
comes ; another change and we take peas ; change 
again and take lentils; change and take snail patties 
(I prefer grasshoppers) ; change and take roast 
chicken and salad; then strawberry pie and ice 
cream; then green figs, pears, oranges, green 
almonds, etc., finally coffee. Wine with every 
course, of course, being in France. With such a 
cargo on board, digestion is a slow process, and we 
must sit long in the cool chambers and smoke — and 
read French newspapers, which have a strange 
fashion of telling a perfectly straight story till you 
get to the ** nub '* of it, and then a word drops in 
that no man can translate, and that story is ruined. 
An embankment fell on some Frenchmen yesterday, 
and the papers are full of it to-day — but v/hether 



142 The innocents Abroad 

those sufferers were killed, or crippled, or bruised, 
or only scared, is more than I can possibly make 
out, and yet I would just give anything to know. 

We were troubled a little at dinner to-day, by the 
conduct of an American, who talked very loudly 
and coarsely, and laughed boisterously where all 
others were so quiet and well-behaved. He ordered 
wine with a royal flourish, and said: ** I never dine 
without wine, sir " (which was a pitiful falsehood), 
and looked around upon the company to bask in 
the admiration he expected to find in their faces. 
All these airs in a land where they would as soon 
expect to leave the soup out of the bill of fare as 
the wine ! — in a land where wine is nearly as com- 
mon among all ranks as water ! This fellow said : 
** I am a free-born sovereign, sir, an American, sir, 
and I want everybody to know it ! ' * He did not 
mention that he was a lineal descendant of Balaam's 
ass; but everybody knew that without his telling it. 

We have driven in the Prado — that superb avenue 
bordered with patrician mansions and noble shade 
trees — and have visited the Chateau Bor61y and its 
curious museum. They showed us a miniature 
cemetery there — a copy of the first graveyard that 
was ever in Marseilles, no doubt. The delicate little 
skeletons were lying in broken vaults, and had their 
household gods and kitchen utensils with them. 
The original of this cemetery was dug up in the 
principal street of the city a few years ago. It had 
remained there, only twelve feet under ground, for 



The Innocents Abroad 



143 



a matter of twenty-five hundred years, or there- 
abouts, Romulus was here before he built Rome^ 
and thought something of founding a city on this 
spot, but gave up the idea He may have been 
personally acquainted with some of these Phoenicians 
whose skeletons we have been examining 

In the great Zoological Gardens we found speci- 
mens of all the animals the world produces, I think, 
mcluding a dromedary^ a monkey ornamented with 
tufts of brilliant blue and carmine hair — -a very 
gorgeous monkey he was — a hippopotamus from 
the Nile, and a sort of tall, long-legged bird with a 
beak like a powder-horn, and close-fitting wings like 
the tails of a dress-coat This fellow stood up with 
his eyes shut and his shoulders stooped forward a 
little, and looked as if he had his hands under his 
coat-tails. Such tranquil stupidity, such supernatural 
gravity, such self-righteousness^ and such ineffable 
self-complacency as were in the countenance and 
attitude of that gray-bodied ^ dark- winged, bald 
headed, and preposterously uncomely bird ! He 
was so ungainly, so pimply about the headj, so scaly 
about the legs; yet so serene, so unspeakably satis 
fied! He was the most comical-looking creature 
that can be imagined. It was good to hear Dan and 
the doctor laugh - — such natural and such enjoyable 
laughter had not been heard among our excursionists 
since our ship sailed away from America. This bird 
was a godsend to us, and I should be an ingrate if 
I forgfot ^o make honorable mention of him ''n these 



144 The Innocents Abroad 

pages. Ours was a pleasure excursion; therefore 
we stayed with that bird an hour, and made the 
most of him. We stirred him up occasionally, but 
he only unclosed an eye and slowly closed it again, 
abating no jot of his stately piety of demeanor or 
his tremendous seriousness. He only seemed to 
say, ** Defile not Heaven's anointed with unsanctified 
hands." We did not know his name, and so we 
called him **The Pilgrim.** Dan said: 

*' All he wants now is a Plymouth Collection." 
The boon companion of the colossal elephant was 
a common cat ! This cat had a fashion of climbing 
up the elephant's hind legs, and roosting on his 
back. She would sit up there, with her paws curved 
under her breast, and sleep in the sun half the after- 
noon. It used to annoy the elephant at first, and 
he would reach up and take her down, but she 
would go aft and climb up again. She persisted 
until she finally conquered the elephant's prejudices, 
and now they are inseparable friends. The cat 
plays about her comrade's forefeet or his trunk 
often, until dogs approach, and then she goes aloft 
out of danger. The elephant has annihilated several 
dogs lately, that pressed his companion too closely. 
We hired a sailboat and a guide and made an 
excursion to one of the small islands in the harbor 
to visit the Castle d'If. This ancient fortress has a 
melancholy history. It has been used as a prison 
for political offenders for two or three hundred 
yearSji and its dungeon walls are scarred with the 



The Innocents Abroad 



US 



rudely-carved names of many and many a captive 
who fretted his Hfe away here, and left no record of 
himself but these sad epitaphs wrought with his own 
hands. How thick the names were! And their 
long-departed owners seemed to throng the gloomy 
cells and corridors with their phantom shapes. We 
loitered through dungeon after dungeon, away down 
into the living rock below the level of the sea, it 
seemed. Names everywhere ! — some plebeian, some 
noble, some even princely. Plebeian^ prince, and 
noble, had one solicitude in common — they would 
not be forgotten ! They could suffer solitude, inac- 
tivity, and the horrors of a silence that no sound 
ever disturbed ; but they could not bear the thought 
of being utterly forgotten by the world. Hence 
the carved names. In one cell, where a little light 
penetrated, a man had lived twenty-seven years 
without seeing the face of a human being — lived in 
filth and wretchedness, with no companionship but 
his own thoughts, and they were sorrowful enough, 
and hopeless enough, no doubt. Whatever his 
jailers considered that he needed was conveyed to 
his cell by night, through a wicket. This man 
carved the walls of his prison-house from floor to 
roof with all manner of figures of men and animals^ 
grouped in intricate designs. He had toiled there 
year after year, at his self-appointed task, while in- 
fants grew to boyhood — to vigorous youth -— idled 
through school and college — acquired a professioD 
- claimed man's mature estate — married anc: 
10. 



146 The Innocents Abroad 

looked back to infancy as to a thing of some vague, 
ancient time, almost. But who shall tell how many 
ages it seemed to this prisoner? With the one, time 
flew sometimes ; with the other, never — it crawled 
always. To the one, nights spent in dancing had 
seemed made of minutes instead of hours; to the 
other, those self-same nights had been Hke all othei 
nights of dungeon life, and seemed made of slow, 
dragging weeks, instead of hours and minutes. 

One prisoner of fifteen years had scratched verses 
upon his walls, and brief prose sentences — brief, 
but full of pathos. These spoke not of himself and 
his hard estate; but only of the shrine where his 
spirit fled the prison to worship — of home and the 
idols that were templed there. He never lived to 
see them. 

The walls of these dungeons are as thick as some 
bed-chambers at home are wide — fifteen feet. We 
saw the damp, dismal cells in which two of Dumas* 
heroes passed their confinement — heroes of ** Monte 
Cristo/' It was here that the brave Abbd wrote a 
book with his own blood; with a pen made of a 
piece of iron hoop, and by the light of a lamp made 
out of shreds of cloth soaked in grease obtained 
from his food ; and then dug through the thick wall 
with some trifling instrument which he wrought 
himself out of a stray piece of iron or table cutlery, 
and freed Dant^s from his chains. It was a pity 
that so many weeks of dreary labor should have 
^ome to naught at last. 



The innocenib Abroad 



14^ 



They showed us the noisome cell where the cele- 
brated **Iron Mask'* — that ill-starred brother of a 
hard-hearted king of France — was confined for a 
season, before he was sent to hide the strange mys- 
tery of his life from the curious in the dungeons of 
St. Marguerite. The place had a far greater interest 
for us than it could have had if we had known be- 
yond all question who the Iron Mask was, and what 
his history had been, and why this most unusual 
punishment had been meted out to him. Mystery I 
That was the charm. That speechless tongue, those 
prisoned features, that heart so freighted with un- 
spoken troubles, and that breast so oppressed with 
its piteous secret, had been here. These dank 
walls had known the man whose dolorous story is ? 
sealed book forever ! There was fascination in th< 
spot. 



CHAPTER XII. 

WE have come five hundred miles by rail through 
the heart of France. What a bewitching land 
it is ! What a garden ! Surely the leagues of bright 
green lawns are swept arid brushed and watered 
every day and their grasses trimmed by the barber. 
Surely the hedges are shaped and measured and 
their symmetry preserved by the most architectural 
of gardeners. Surely the long, straight rows of 
stately poplars that divide the beautiful landscape 
like the squares of a checker-board are set with line 
and plummet, and their uniform height determined 
with a spirit level. Surely the straight, smooth, 
pure white turnpikes are jack-planed and sand- 
papered every day. How else are these marvels of 
symmetry, cleanliness, and order attained? It is 
wonderful. There are no unsightly stone walls, and 
never a fence of any kind. There is no dirt, no 
decay, no rubbish any where — nothing that eve a 
hints at untidiness — nothing that ever suggests 
neglect. All is orderly and beautiful — -everything 
!s charming to the eye. 

We had such glimxpses of the Rhone gliding along 

1*8 



The Innocents Abroad 



149 



between its grassy banks ; of cosy cottages buried 
in flowers and shrubbery; of quaint old red-tiled 
villages with mossy mediaeval cathedrals looming 
out of their midst ; of wooded hills with ivy-grown 
towers and turrets of feudal castles projecting above 
the foliage; such glimpses of Paradise, it seemed to 
us, such visions of fabled fairy-land ! 

We knew, then, what the poet meant, when he 
sang of — 

" — thy cornfields green, and sunny vines, 
O pleasant land of France ! " 

And it /j a pleasant land. No word described it 
so felicitously as that one. They say there is no 
word for **home" in the French language. Well 
considering that they have the article itself in such 
an attractive aspect, they ought to manage to get 
along without the word. Let us not waste too much 
pity on ** homeless " France. I have observed that 
Frenchmen abroad seldom wholly give up the idea 
of going back to France some time or other. I am 
not surprised at it now. 

We are not infatuated with these French railway 
cars, though. We took first-class passage, not be- 
cause we wished to attract attention by doing a thing 
which is uncommon in Europe, but because we 
could make our journey quicker by so doings It is 
hard to make railroading pleasant, in any country. 
It is too tedious. Stage-coaching is infinitely more 
delightful. Once I crossed the plains and deserts 
and mountains of the West, in a stage-coach ^ from 



ISO The Innocents Abroad 

the Missouri h'ne to California, and since then all 
my pleasure-trips must be measured to that rare 
holiday frolice Two thousand miles of ceaseless 
rush and rattle and clatter, by night and by day, and 
never a weary moment, never a lapse of interest ! 
The first seven hundred miles a level continent, its 
grassy carpet greener and softer and smoother than 
any sea, and figured with designs fitted to its magni- 
tude — the shadows of the clouds. Here were no 
scenes but summer scenes, and no disposition in- 
spired by them but to lie at full length on the mail 
sacks, in the grateful breeze, and dreamily smoke the 
pipe of peace — what other, where all was repose 
and contentment? In cool mornings, before the 
sun was fairly up, it was worth a lifetime of city 
toiling and moiling, to perch in the foretop with the 
driver and see the six mustangs scamper under the 
sharp snapping of a whip that never touched them ; 
to scan the blue distances of a world that knew no 
lords but us ; to cleave the wind with uncovered head 
and feel the sluggish pulses rousing to the spirit of a 
speed that pretended to the resistless rush of a 
typhoon ! Then thirteen hundred miles of desert 
solitudes; of limitless panoramas of bewildering 
perspective; of mimic cities, of pinnacled cathe- 
drals, of massive fortresses, counterfeited in the 
eternal rocks and splendid with the crimson and 
gold of the setting sun; of dizzy altitudes among 
fog-wreathed peaks and never-melting snows, where 
thunders and lightnings and tempests warred mag- 



The Innocents Abroad 



151 



nificently at our feet and the storm-clouds above 
swung their shredded banners in our very faces ! 

But I forgot. I am in elegant France, now, and 
not skurrying through the great South Pass and the 
Wind River Mountains, among antelopes and buffa- 
loes, and painted Indians on the warpath. It is 
not meet that I should make too disparaging com- 
parisons between humdrum travel on a railway and 
that royal summer flight across a continent in a 
stage-coach. I meant, in the beginning, to say that 
railway journeying is tedious and tiresome, and so it 
is — though, at the time, I was thinking particularly 
of a dismal fifty-hour pilgrimage between New York 
and St. Louis. Of course our trip through France 
was not really tedious, because all its scenes and 
experiences were new and strange ; but as Dan says^ 
it had its ** discrepancies.*' 

The cars are built in compartments that hold eight 
persons each. Each compartment is partially sub- 
divided, and so there are two tolerably distinct 
parties of four in it. Four face the other four 
The seats and backs are thickly padded and cush- 
ioned, and are very comfortable; you can smoke, if 
you wish; there are no bothersome peddlers; you 
are saved the infliction of a multitude of disagree- 
able fellow-passengers. So far, so well. But then 
the conductor locks you in when the train starts ; 
there is no water to drink in the car; there is no 
heating apparatus for night travel; if a drunken 
rowdy should get in, you could not remove a mattef 



152 The Innocents Abroad 

of twenty seats from him, or enter another car; but, 
above all, if you are worn out and must sleep, you 
must sit up and do it in naps, with cramped legs and 
in a torturing misery that leaves you withered and 
lifeless the next day — for behold, they have not 
that culmination of all charity and human kindness, 
a sleeping car, in all France. I prefer the American 
system. It has not so many grievous ** discrepan- 
cies.'* 

In France, all is clockwork, all is order. They 
make no mistakes. Every third man wears a uni- 
form, and whether he be a marshal of the empire or 
a brakeman, he is ready and perfectly willing to 
answer all your questions with tireless politeness, 
ready to tell you which car to take, yea, and ready 
to go and put you into it to make sure that you shall 
not go astray. You cannot pass into the waiting- 
room of the depot till you have secured your ticket, 
and you cannot pass from its only exit till the train 
is at its threshold to receive you. Once on board, 
the train will not start till your ticket has been ex- 
amined — till every passenger's ticket has been in- 
spected. This is chiefly for your own good. If 
by any possibility you have managed to take the 
wrong train, you will be handed over to a polite 
official who will take you whither you belong, and 
bestow you with many an affable bow. Your ticket 
will be inspected every now and then along the 
routCj and when it is time to change cars you will 
^Jiow it. You are in the hands of officials who 



The Innocents AO^oac 



i53 



zealously study your welfare and your niterest, m 
stead of turning their talents to the invention ot new 
methods of discommoding and snubbing you, as is 
very often the main employment of that exceedingly 
self-satisfied monarch, the railroad conductor of 
America. 

But the happiest regulation in French railway 
government, is — thirty minutes to dinner 1 No five- 
minute boltings of flabby rolls, muddy coffee, ques- 
tionable eggs, gutta-percha beef, and pies whose 
conception and execution are a dark and bloody 
mystery to all save the cook who created them? 
No; we sat calmly down — it was in old DijoUp 
which is so easy to spell and so impossible to pro- 
nounce, except when you civilize it and call it 
Demijohn — and poured out rich Burgundian wines 
and munched calmly through a long table d'hote 
bill of fare, snail patties, delicious fruits and all, then 
paid the trifle it cost and stepped happily aboard the 
train again, without once cursing the railroad com- 
pany. A rare experience, and one to be treasured 
forever. 

They say they do not have accidents on these 
French roads, and I think it must be trueo If I 
remember rightly, we passed high above wagon 
roads, or through tunnels under them,, but never 
crossed them on their own leveL About every 
quarter of a mile, it seemed to me^ a man came out 
and held up a club till the train went by, to signify 
that everything was safe ahead. Switches wer^ 



154 The Innocents Abroad 

changed a mile in advance, by pulling a wire rope 
that passed along the ground by the rail, from 
station to station. Signals for the day and signals 
for the night gave constant and timely notice of the 
position of switches. 

No, they have no railroad accidents to speak of in 
FrancCc But why? Because when one occurs, 
so7nebody hdiS to hang for it!* Not hang, maybe, 
but be punished at least with such vigor of emphasis 
as to make negligence a thing to be shuddered at by 
railroad officials for many a day thereafter. **No 
blame attached to the officers*' — that lying and 
disaster-breeding verdict so common to our soft' 
hearted jurieSy is seldom rendered in France^ If the 
trouble occurred in the conductor's department, that 
officer must suffer if his subordinate cannot be 
proven guilty; if in the engineer's department, and 
the case be similar, the engineer must answer. 

The Old Travelers — those delightful parrots who 
have "* been here before," and know more about 
the country than Louis Napoleon knows now or 
ever will know, — tell us these things, and we believe 
them because they are pleasant things to believe, 
and because they are plausible and savor of the rigid 
subjection to law and order which we behold about 
us everywhere. 

But we love the Old Travelers, We love to hear 
them prate and drivel and lie We can tell them 

• They go on the principle that it is better that one innocent mai 
should suffer than five hundred. 



The innocents Abroad 



155 



the moment we see them. They always throw out 
a few feelers : they never cast themselves adrift till 
they have sounded every individual and know that 
he has not traveled. Then they open their throttle- 
valves, and how they do brag, and sneer, and swell, 
and soar, and blaspheme the sacred name of Truth ! 
Their central idea, their grand aim, is to subjugate 
you, keep you down, make you feel insignificant 
and humble in the blaze of their cosmopolitan glory ! 
They will not let you know anything. They sneer 
at your most inoffensive suggestions; they laugh 
unfeelingly at your treasured dreams of foreign 
lands; they brand the statements of your traveled 
aunts and uncles as the stupidest absurdities ; they 
deride your most trusted authors and demolish the 
fair images they have set up for your willing worship 
with the pitiless ferocity of the fanatic iconoclast ! 
But still I love the Old Travelers. I love them for 
their witless platitudes ; for their supernatural ability 
to bore ; for their delightful asinine vanity ; for their 
luxuriant fertility of imagination ; for their startling, 
their brilliant, their overwhelming mendacity ! 

By Lyons and the Sa6ne (where we saw the Lady 
of Lyons and thought little of her comeliness) ; by 
Villa Franca, Tonnerre, venerable Sens, Melun, Fon* 
tainebleau, and scores of other beautiful cities, we 
swept, always noting the absence of hog-wallows, 
broken fences, cowlots, unpainted houses, and mudy 
and always noting, as well, the presence of cleanliness, 
grace, taste in adorning and beautifying, even to the 



1^6 The Innocents Abroad 

disposition of a tree or the turning of a hedge, the 
marvel of roads in perfect repair, void of ruts and 
guiltless of even an inequality of surface — we 
bov/led along, hour after hour, that brilliant summer 
day, and as nightfall approached we entered a 
wilderness of odorous flowers and shrubbery, sped 
through it, and then, excited, delighted, and half 
persuaded that we were only the sport of a beautiful 
dream, lo, we stood in magnificent Paris! 

What excellent order they kept about that vast 
depot ! There was no frantic crowding and jostling, 
no shouting and swearing, and no swaggering in- 
trusion of services by rowdy hackmen. These latter 
gentry stood outside — stood quietly by their long 
line of vehicles and said never a word. A kind of 
hackman-general seemed to have the whole matter 
of transportation in his hands. He politely received 
the passengers and ushered them to the kind of 
conveyance they wanted, and told the driver where 
to deliver them. There was no ** talking back," no 
dissatisfaction about overcharging, no grumbling 
about anything. In a little while we were speeding 
through the streets of Paris, and delightfully recog- 
nizing certain names and places with which books 
had long ago made us familiar. It was like meeting 
an old friend when we read ** Rtie de Rivoli** on the 
street corner ; we knew the genuine vast palace of 
the Louvre as well as we knew its picture ; when we 
passed by the Column of July we needed no one to 
tell us what it was^ or to remind us that on its site 



The Innocents Abroad 15? 

once stood the grim Bastile, that grave of human 
hopes and happhiess, that dismal prison-house 
within whose dungeons so many young faces put on 
the wrinkles of age, so many proud spirits grew 
humble, so many brave hearts broke. 

We secured rooms at the hotel, or rather, we had 
three beds put into one room, so that we might be 
together, and then we went out to a restaurant, just 
after lamp-lighting, and ate a comfortable, satis- 
factory, lingering dinner. It was a pleasure to eat 
where everything was so tidy, the food so well 
cooked, the waiters so polite, and the coming and 
departing company so moustached, so frisky, so 
affable, so fearfully and wonderfully Frenchy ! All 
the surroundings were gay and enlivening. Two 
hundred people sat at little tables on the sidewalk, 
sipping wine and coffee ; the streets were thronged 
with light vehicles and with joyous pleasure-seekers ; 
there was music in the air, life and action all about 
us, and a conflagration of gaslight everywhere ! 

After dinner we felt like seeing such Parisian 
specialties as we might see without distressing exer- 
tion, and so we sauntered through the brilliant streets 
and looked at the dainty trifles in variety stores and 
jewelry shops. Occasionally, merely for the pleasure 
of being cruel, we put unoffending Frenchmen on 
the rack with questions framed in the incomprehen- 
sible jargon of their native language, and while they 
writhed, we impaled them, we peppered them, we 
scarified them, with their own vile verbs and participles. 



158 The innocents Abroad 

We noticed that in the jewelry stores they had 
some of the articles marked **gold," and some 
labeled ** imitation." We wondered at this extrava- 
gance of honesty, and inquired into the matter. We 
were informed that inasmuch as most people are not 
able to tell false gold from the genuine article, the 
government compels jewelers to have their gold work 
assayed and stamped officially according to its fine- 
ness, and their imitation work duly labeled with the 
sign of its falsity. They told us the jewelers would 
not dare to violate this law, and that whatever a 
stranger bought in one of their stores might be de- 
pended upon as being strictly what it was repre- 
sented to be. Verily, a wonderful land is France ! 

Then we hunted for a barber-shop. From earliest 
infancy it had been a cherished ambition of mine to 
be shaved some day in a palatial barber-shop of 
Paris. I wished to recline at full length in a cush- 
ioned invalid-chair, with pictures about me, and 
sumptuous furniture ; with frescoed walls and gilded 
arches above me, and vistas of Corinthian columns 
stretching far before me ; with perfumes of Araby 
to intoxicate my senses, and the slumbrous drone of 
distant noises to soothe me to sleep. At the end of 
an hour I would wake up regretfully and find my 
face as smooth and as soft as an infant's. Depart- 
ing, I would lift my hands above that barber's head 
and say, ** Heaven bless you, my son!" 

So we searched high and low, for a matter of two 
hourSj but never a barber-shop could we J^ee. We 



The Innocents Abroad 159 

saw only wig-making establishments, with shocks of 
dead and repulsive hair bound upon the heads of 
painted waxen brigands who stared out from glass 
boxes upon the passer-by, with their stony eyes, 
and scared him with the ghostly white of their coun- 
tenances. We shunned these signs for a time, but 
finally we concluded that the wig-makers must of 
necessity be the barbers as well, since we could 
find no single legitimate representative of the frater- 
nity. We entered and asked, and found that it 
was even so. 

I said I wanted to be shaved. The barber in» 
quired where my room was. I said, never mind 
where my room was, I wanted to be shaved — there, 
on the spot. The doctor said he would be shaved 
also. Then there was an excitement among those 
two barbers! There was a wild consultation, and 
afterward a hurrying to and fro and a feverish gather- 
ing up of razors from obscure places and a ransack* 
ing for soap. Next they took us into a little mean, 
shabby back room ; they got two ordinary sitting- 
room chairs and placed us in them, with our coats 
on. My old, old dream of bHss vanished into thin 
air! 

I sat bolt upright, silent, sad, and solemno One 
of the wig-making villains lathered my face for ten 
terrible minutes and finished by plastering a mass of 
suds into my mouth, I expelled the nasty stuff with 
a strong English expletive and said, ** Foreigner^ 
beware ! ' ' Then this outlaw strapped his razor on 



160 The Innocents Abroad 

his boot, hovered over me ominously for six fearful 
seconds, and then swooped down upon me Hke the 
genius of destruction. The first rake of his razor 
loosened the very hide from my face and lifted me 
out of the chair, I stormed and raved, and the 
other boys enjoyed it. Their beards are not strong 
and thick. Let us draw the curtain over this harrow- 
ing scene. Suffice it that I submitted, and went 
through with the cruel infliction of a shave by a 
French barber ; tears of exquisite agony coursed down 
my cheeks, now and then, but I survived. Then the 
incipient assassin held a ba?.in of water under my 
chin and slopped its contents over my face, and into 
my bosom, and down the back of my neck, with a 
mean pretense of washing away the soap and blood. 
He dried my features with a towel, and was going 
to comb my hair; but I asked to be excused. I 
said, with withering irony, that it was sufficient to 
be skinned — I declined to be scalped. 

I went away from there with my handkerchief 
about my face, and never, never, never desired to 
dream of palatial Parisian barber-shops any more. 
The truth is, as I believe I have since found out, 
that they have no barber-shops worthy of the name 
in Paris ^ — and no barbers, either, for that matter. 
The impostor who does duty as a barber brings his 
pans and napkins and implements of torture to your 
residence and deliberately skins you in your private 
apartments. Ah, I have suffered, suffered, suffered, 
here in Paris, but never mind— -the time is coming 



The innocents Abroad 1.6i 

when I shall have a dark and bloody revenge. Some 
day a Parisian barber will come to my room to skin 
me, and from that day forth that barber will nevei 
be heard of more. 

At eleven o'clock we alighted upon a sign which 
manifestly referred to billiards. Joy! We had 
played billiards in the Azores with balls that were 
not round, and on an ancient table that was very 
little smoother than a brick pavement — one of those 
wretched old things with dead cushions, and with 
patches in the faded cloth and invisible obstructions 
that made the balls describe the most astonishing 
and unsuspected angles, and perform feats in the 
way of unlooked-for and almost impossible 
** scratches," that were perfectly bewildering. We 
had played at Gibraltar with balls the size of a 
walnut, on a table like a public square — and in both 
instances we achieved far more aggravation than 
amusement. We expected to fare better here, but 
we were mistaken. The cushions were a good deal 
higher than the balls, and as the balls had a fashion 
of always stopping under the cushions, we accom- 
plished very little in the way of caroms. The cush- 
ions were hard and unelastic, and the cues were so 
crooked that in making a shot you had to allow for 
the curve or you would infallibly put the ' ' English ' ' 
on the wrong side of the ball. Dan was to mark 
while the doctor and I played. At the end of an 
hour neither of us had made a count, and so Dan 
was tired of keeping tally with nothing to tally, and 



162 The Innocents Abroad 

we were heated and angry and disgusted. We paid 
the heavy bill — about six cents- — and said we 
would call around some time when we had a week 
to spend, and finish the game. 

We adjourned to one of those pretty cafes and 
took supper and tested the wines of the country, as 
we had been instructed to do, and found them harm- 
less and unexciting. They might have been ex- 
citing, however, if we had chosen to drink a suffi- 
ciency of them. 

To close our first day in Paris cheerfully and 
pleasantly, we now sought our grand room in the 
Grand Hotel du Louvre and cHmbed into our sump- 
tuous bed, to read and smoke — -but alas I 

It was pitiful, 
In a whole city-full. 
Gas we had none. 

No gas to read by — nothing but dismal candles. 
It was a shame. We tried to map out excursions 
for the morrow; we puzzled over French ** Guides 
to Paris'* ; we talked disjointedly, in a vain endeavor 
to make head or tail of the wild chaos of the day's 
sights and experiences; we subsided to indolent 
smoking; we gaped and yawned, and stretched — 
then feebly wondered if we were really and truly in 
renowned Paris, and drifted drowsily away into that 
vast mysterious void which men call sleep. 



CHAPTER XIIL 

THE next morning we were up and dressed at ten 
o'clock. We went to the commissionaire of 
the hotel — I don't know what a commissionaire is, 
but that is the man we went to — and told him we 
wanted a guide. He said the great International 
Exposition had drawn such multitudes of English- 
men and Americans to Paris that it would be next 
to impossible to find a good guide unemployed. He 
said he usually kept a dozen or two on hand, but he 
only had three now. He called them. One looked 
so like a very pirate that we let him go at oncCo 
The next one spoke with a simpering precision of 
pronunciation that was irritating, and said : 

** If ze zhentlemans will to me make ze grande 
honneur to me rattain in hees serveece, I shall show 
to him everysing zat is magnifique to look upon in 
ze beautiful Parree. I speaky ze Angleesh pair- 
f aitemaw, * ' 

He would have done well to have stopped there, 
because he had that much by heart and said it right 
off without making a mistake. But his self-com- 
placency seduced him into attempting a flight snto 



164 The innocents Abroad 

regions of unexplored English, and the reckless 
experiment was his ruin. Within ten seconds he 
was so tangled up in a maze of mutilated verbs and 
torn and bleeding forms of speech that no human 
ingenuity could ever have gotten him out of it with 
credit. It was plain enough that he could not 
'* speaky " the English quite as ** pairfaitemaw *' as 
he had pretended he could. 

The third man captured us. He was plainly 
dressed, but he had a noticeable air of neatness 
about him. He wore a high silk hat which 
was a little old, but had been, carefully brushed. He 
wore second-hand kid gloves, in good repair, and 
carried a small rattan cane with a curved handle — a 
female leg, of ivorye He stepped as gently and as 
daintily as a cat crossing a muddy street; and oh, he 
tvas urbanity; he was quiet, unobtrusive self-posses- 
sion ; he was deference itself 1 He spoke softly and 
guardedly ; and when he was about to make a state- 
ment on his sole responsibility, or offer a sugges- 
tion, he weighed it by drachms and scruples first, 
with the crook of his little stick placed meditatively 
to his teeth. His opening speech was perfect. It 
was perfect in construction, in phraseology, in 
grammar, in emphasis, in pronunciation — every- 
thing. He spoke little and guardedly, after that. 
We were charmed. We were more than charmed — 
we were overjoyed. We hired him at once. We 
never even asked him his price. This man — our 
bckey* our servant, our unquestioning slave though 



The Innocents Abroad ib^ 

he was, was still a gentleman — we could see that— - 
while of the other two one was coarse and awkward 
and the other was a born pirate. We asked our 
man Friday's name. He drew from his pocket- 
book a snowy little card, and passed it to us with a 
profound bow: 

A. BiLLFINGER, 

Guide to Paris, France, Germany, 

Spain, &c., &c., 

Grande Hotel du Lozwre. 

** Billfinger ! Oh, carry me home to die !*' 
That was an ** aside'* from Dan. The atrocious 
name grated harshly on my ear, too. The most of 
us can learn to forgive, and even to like, a counte- 
nance that strikes us unpleasantly at first, but few of 
us, I fancy, become reconciled to a jarring name so 
easily. I was almost sorry we had hired this man, 
his name was so unbearable. However, no matter. 
We were impatient to start. Billfinger stepped to 
the door to call a carriage, and then the doctor said : 
** Well, the guide goes with the barber-shop, with 
the billiard table, with the gasless room, and maybe 
with many another pretty romance of Paris, I ex- 
pected to have a guide named Henri de Mont- 
morency, or Armand de la Chartreuse, or something 
that would sound grand in letters to the villagers at 
home ; but to think of a Frenchman by the name of 
Billfinger! Oh! this is absurd, you know. This 
will never do. We can't say Billfinger; it is nause- 



166 Vht Innocents Abroad 

ating. Name him over again ; what had we bettei 

call him? Alexis du Caulaincourt?" 

** Alphonse Henri Gustave de Hauteville," I sug- 
gested. 

*' Call him Ferguson," said Dan. 

That was practical, unromantic good sense. 
Without debate, we expunged Billfinger as Bill- 
finger, and called him Ferguson. 

The carriage — an open barouche — was ready. 
Ferguson mounted beside the driver, and we whirled 
away to breakfast. As was proper, Mr. Ferguson 
stood by to transmit our orders and answer ques- 
tions. By and by, he mentioned casually — the 
artful adventurer — that he would go and get his 
breakfast as soon as we had finished ours. He 
knew we could not get along without him, and that 
we would not want to loiter about and wait for him. 
We asked him to sit down and eat with us. He 
begged, with many a bow, to be excused. It 
was not proper, he said ; he would sit at another 
table. We ordered him peremptorily to sit down 
with us. 

Here endeth the first lesson. It was a mistake. 

As long as we had the fellow after that, he was 
always hungry; he was always thirsty. He came 
early ; he stayed late ; he could not pass a restaurant ; 
he looked with a lecherous eye upon every wine-shop. 
Suggestions to stop, excuses to eat and to drink 
were forever on his lips. We tried all we could to 
fill him so full that he would have no room to spare 



The innocents Abroad 167 

for a fortnight; but it was a failure. He did not 
hold enough to smother the cravings of his super- 
human appetite. 

He had another ** discrepancy** about him. He 
was always wanting us to buy things. On the shal- 
lowest pretenses, he would inveigle us into shirt- 
stores, boot-stores, tailor-shops, glove-shops — any- 
where under the broad sweep of the heavens that 
there seemed a chance of our buying anything. Any 
one could have guessed that the shopkeepers paid 
him a percentage on the sales ; but in our blessed 
innocence we didn't, until this feature of his conduct 
grew unbearably prominent. One day, Dan hap- 
pened to mention that he thought of buying three or 
four silk dress-patterns for presents. Ferguson*s 
hungry eye was upon him in an instant. In the 
course of twenty minutes, the carriage stopped. 

** What's this ?** 

** Zis is ze finest silk magazin in Paris — ze most 
celebrate." 

** What did you come here for? We told you to 
iake us to the palace of the Louvre.** 

** I suppose ze gentleman say he wish to buy some 
iilk.'* 

' * You are not required to * suppose * things for 
/he party, Ferguson. We do not wish to tax your 
jinergies too much. We will bear some of the 
burden and heat of the day ourselves. We will 
endeavor to do such * supposing * as is really neces- 
sary to a>e done. Drive on/' So spake the doctor. 



168 The Innocents Abroad 

Within fifteen minutes the carriage halted again, 
and before another silk-store. The doctor said : 

'* Ah, the palace of the Louvre; beautiful, beau- 
tiful edifice ! Does the Emperor Napoleon live here 
now, Ferguson?" 

**Ah, doctor! you do jest; zis is not ze palace; 
we come there directly. But since we pass right by 
zis store, where is such beautiful silk '* 

'* Ah! I see, I see. I meant to have told you 
that we did not wish to purchase any silks to-day ; 
but in my absentmindedness I forgot it. I also 
meant to tell you we wished to go directly to the 
Louvre; but I forgot that also. However, we will 
go there now. Pardon my seeming carelessness, 
Fergusonc Drive on.** 

Within the half-hour, we stopped again — in front 
of another silk-store. - We were angry ; but the 
doctor was always serene, always smooth- voiced. 
He said. 

" At last! How imposing the Louvre is, and yet 
how small ! how exquisitely fashioned I how charm- 
ingly situated! Venerable, venerable pile '* 

** Pairdon, doctor, zis is not ze Louvre — it 
Is- *' 

** WMf is it?'* 

'* I have ze idea — it come to me in a moment — 
zat ze silk in zis magazin ** 

'* Ferguson, how heedless I am! I fully intended 
to tell you that we did not wish to buy any silks to- 
day^ and I also intended to tell you th^t we yearned 



The innocents Abroad 169 

to go immediately to the palace of the Louvre, but 
enjoying the happiness of seeing you devour four 
breakfasts this morning has so filled me with pleasur- 
able emotions that I neglect the commonest interests 
of the time. However, we will proceed now to the 
Louvre, Ferguson.'* 

•'But, doctor** (excitedly), "it will take not a 
minute — not but one small minute ! Ze gentleman 
need not to buy if he not wish to — but only look at 
ze silk — /^^/^ at ze beautiful fabric.*' [Then plead- 
ingly.] * * Sair — just only one leetle moment ! ' * 

Dan said, " Confound the idiot! I don't want to 
see any silks to-day, and I woti't look at them, 
Drive on." 

And the doctor: ** We need no silks now, Fergu- 
son. Our hearts yearn for the Louvre, Let us 
journey on — let us journey on." 

•*But, doctor! it is only one moment — one leetle 
moment. And ze time will be save — entirely save \ 
Because zere is nothing to see, now — it is too late. 
It want ten minute to four and ze Louvre close at 
four — only one leetle moment, doctor!" 

The treacherous miscreant ! After four breakfasts 
and a gallon of champagne, to serve us such a scurvy 
trick. We got no sight of the countless treasures of 
art in the Louvre galleries that day, and our only 
poor little satisfaction was in the reflection that 
Ferguson sold not a solitary silk dress-pattern, 

I am writing this chapter partly for the satisfac- 
tion of abusing that accomplished knave, Billfingen 



170 The Innocents Abroad 

and partly to show whosoever shall read this ho^« 
Americans fare at the hands of the Paris guides, and 
what sort of people Paris guides are. It need not 
be supposed that we were a stupider or an easier 
prey than our countrymen generally are, for we 
were not The guides deceive and defraud every 
American who goes to Paris for the first time and 
sees its sights alone or in company with others as 
little experienced as himself. I shall visit Paris 
again some day, and then let the guides beware ! I 
shall go in my war-paint — I shall carry my toma- 
hawk along. 

I think we have lost but little time in Paris, We 
have gone to bed every night tired outo Of course, 
we visited the renowned International Exposition-, 
All the world did that. We went there on our third 
day in Paris — and we stayed there nearly two hours. 
That was our first and last visit. To tell the truth, 
we saw at a glance that one would have to spend 
weeks — yea, even months — in that monstrous 
establishment, to get an intelligible idea of it. It 
was a wonderful show, but the moving masses of 
people of all nations we saw there were a still more 
wonderful shoWc I discovered that if I were to stay 
there a month, I should still find myself looking at 
the people instead of the inanimate objects on 
exhibition, I got a little interested in some curious 
old tapestries of the thirteenth century, but a party 
of Arabs came by, and their dusky faces and quaint 
costumes called my attention away at once. I 



The innocents Abroad 171 

watched a silver swan, which had a hVing grace 
about his movements, and a living intelligence in his 
eyes — watched him swimming about as comfortably 
and as unconcernedly as if he had been born in a 
morass instead of a jeweler's shop — watched him 
seize a silver fish from under the water and hold up 
his head and go through all the customary and 
elaborate motions of swallowing it — but the moment 
it disappeared down his throat some tattooed South 
Sea Islanders approached and I yielded to their 
attractions^ Presently I found a revolving pistol 
several hundred years old which looked strangely 
like a modern Colt, but just then I heard that the 
Empress of the French was in another part of the 
building, and hastened away to see what she might 
look like. We heard martial music — we saw an 
unusual number of soldiers walking hurriedly about 
— there was a general movement among the people. 
We inquired what it was all about, and learned that 
the Emperor of the French and the Sultan of Turkey 
were about to review twenty-five thousand troops at 
the Arc de r£toile. We immediately departed. 1 
had a greater anxiety to see these men than I could 
have had to see twenty expositions. 

We drove away and took up a position in an open 
space opposite the American minister's house. A 
speculator bridged a couple of barrels with a board 
and we hired standing places on it. Presently there 
v/as a sound of distant music ; in another minute a 
pillar of dust came moving slowly toward us i a mo- 



172 The innocents Abroad 

n:ient more, and then, with colors flying and a grand 
crash of military music, a gallant array of cavalry- 
men emerged from the dust and came down the 
street on a gentle trot. After them came a long 
line of artillery; then more cavalry, in splendid 
uniforms; and then their Imperial Majesties, Napo- 
leon III and Abdul Aziz* The vast concourse of 
people swung their hats and shouted — the windows 
and housetops in the wide vicinity burst into a 
snow-storm of waving handkerchiefs, and the wavers 
of the same mingled their cheers with those of the 
masses below. It was a stirring spectacle. 

But the two central figures claimed all my atten- 
tion. Was ever such a contrast set up before a 
multitude till then? Napoleon, in military uniform 
— a long-bodied, short-legged man. fiercely mus- 
tached, old, wrinkled, with eyes half closed, and 
such a deep, crafty, scheming expression about 
them! Napoleon, bowing ever so gently to the 
loud plaudits, and watching everything and every- 
body with his cat-eyes from under his depressed hat- 
brim, as if to discover any sign that those cheers 
were not heartfelt and cordial. 

Abdul Aziz, absolute lord of the Ottoman Em- 
pire, — clad in dark green European clothes, almost 
without ornament or insignia of rank ; a red Turkish 
fez on his head — a short, stout, dark man, black- 
bearded, black-eyed, stupid, unprepossessing — a 
man whose whole appearance somehow suggested 
that if he only had a cleaver in his hand and a white 



The innocents Abrold if'j' 

m 

apron on, one would not be at all surprised to hear 
him say: '* A mutton roast to-day, or will you have 
a nice porterhouse steak?** 

Napoleon III, the representative of the highest 
modern civilization, progress, and refinement; Ab- 
dul Aziz, the representative of a people by nature 
and training filthy, brutish, ignorant, unprogressivej 
superstitious — and a government whose Three 
Graces are Tyranny, Rapacity, Blood. Here in 
brilliant Paris, under this majestic Arch of Triumph, 
the First Century greets the Nineteenth ! 

Napoleon III, Emperor of France ! Surrounded 
by shouting thousands, by military pomp, by the 
splendors of his capital city, and companioned by 
kings and princes — this is the man who was sneered 
at, and reviled, and called Bastard — yet who was 
dreaming of a crown and an empire ail the while; 
who was driven into exile — but carried his dreams 
with him ; who associated with the common herd in 
America, and ran foot-races for a wager — but still 
sat upon a throne, in fancy; who braved every 
danger to go to his dying mother — and grieved that 
she could not be spared to see him cast aside his 
plebeian vestments for the purple of royalty; who 
kept his faithful watch and walked his weary beat a 
common policeman of London — but dreamed the 
while of a coming night when he should tread the 
long-drawn corridors of the Tullerles; who made 
the miserable fiasco of Strasbourg; saw his poor, 
shabby eagle, forgetful of its lesson, refuse to perch 



174 The Innocents Abroad 

upon his shoulder ; delivered his carefully prepared, 
sententious burst of eloquence upon unsympathetic 
ears; found himself a prisoner, the butt of small 
wits, a mark for the pitiless ridicule of all the world 
— yet went on dreaming of coronations and splendid 
pageants as before ; who lay a forgotten captive in 
the dungeons of Ham — and still schemed and 
planned and pondered over future glory and future 
power; President of France at last! a coup d'etat 
and surrounded by applauding armies, welcomed by 
the thunders of cannon, he mounts a throne and 
waves before an astounded world the scepter of a 
mighty empire ! Who talks of the marvels of fic- 
tion? Who speaks of the wonders of romance? 
Who prates of the tame achievements of Aladdin 
and the Magi of Arabia? 

Abdul Aziz, Sultan of Turkey, Lord of the 
Ottoman Empire ! Born to a throne ; weak, stupid, 
ignorant, almost, as his meanest slave; chief of a 
vast royalty, yet the puppet of his premier and the 
obedient child of a tyrannical mother; a man who 
sits upon a throne — the beck of whose finger moves 
navies and armies — who holds in his hands the 
power of life and death over millions — yet who 
sleeps, sleeps, eats, eats, idles with his eight hundred 
concubines, and when he is surfeited with eating and 
sleeping and idling, and would rouse up and take 
the reins of government and threaten to be a Sultan, 
is charmed from his purpose by wary Fuad Pacha 
with a pretty plan for a new palace or a new ship — 



The Innocents Abroad 175 

charmed away with a new toy, like any other restless 
child ; a man who sees his people robbed and op- 
pressed by soulless tax-gatherers, but speaks no 
word to save them; who believes in gnomes and 
genii and the wild fables of the Arabian Nights, but 
has small regard for the mighty magicians of to-day, 
and is nervous in the presence of their mysterious 
railroads and steamboats and telegraphs ; who would 
see undone in Egypt all that great Mehemet AIJ 
achieved, and would prefer rather to forget than 
emulate him ; a man who found his great empire a 
blot upon the earth — a degraded, poverty-stricken^ 
miserable, infamous agglomeration of ignorance, 
crime, and brutality, and will idle away the allotted 
days of his trivial life, and then pass to the dust and 
the worms and leave it so ! 

Napoleon has augmented the commercial pros- 
perity of France, in ten years, to such a degree that 
figures can hardly compute ito He has rebuilt Paris, 
and has partly rebuilt every city in the state. He 
condemns a whole street at a time, assesses the 
damages, pays them, and rebuilds superbly. Then 
speculators buy up the ground and sell, but the 
original owner is given the first choice by the gov- 
ernment at a stated price before the speculator is 
permitted to purchase But above all things, he 
has taken the sole control of the empire of France 
into his hands, and made it a tolerably free land — ^ 
for people who will not attempt to go too far in 
meddling with government affairs* No country 



176 The Innocents Abroad 

offers greater security to life and property than 
France, and one has all the freedom he wants, but 
no license — no license to interfere with anybody, 
or make any one uncomfortable. 

As for the Sultan, one could set a trap anywhere 
and catch a dozen abler men in a night. 

The bands struck up, and the brilliant adventurers- 
Napoleon III, the genius of Energy, Persistence j 
Enterprise ; and the feeble Abdul Aziz, the genius of 
Ignorance, Bigotry, and Indolence, prepared for the 
Forward — March ! 

We saw the splendid review, we saw the white- 
moustached old Crimean soldier, Canrobert, Marshal 
of France, we saw — well, we saw everything, and 
then we went home satisfied. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

WE went to see the Cathedral of Notre Dame. 
We had heard of it before. It surprises me , 
sometimes, to think how much we do know, and how 
intelligent we are. We recognized the brown old 
Gothic pile in a moment ; it was like the pictures 
We stood at a little distance and changed from one 
point of observation to another, and gazed long at 
its lofty square towers and its rich front, clustered 
thick with stony, mutilated saints who had been 
looking calmly down from their perches for ages. 
The Patriarch of Jerusalem stood under them in the 
old days of chivalry and romance, and preached the 
third Crusade, more than six hundred years ago; 
and since that day they have stood there and looked 
quietly down upon the most thrilling scenes, the 
grandest pageants, the most extraordinary spectacles 
that have grieved or delighted Paris. These bat- 
tered and broken-nosed old fellows saw many and 
many a cavalcade of mail-clad knights come march- 
ing home from Holy Land; they heard the bells 
above them toll the signal for the St. Bartholomew's 
Massacre, and they saw the slaughter that followed: 
12t (177) 



178 The Innocents Abroad 

later, they saw the Reign of Terror, the carnage ot 
the Revolution, the overthrow of a king, the corona- 
tion of two Napoleons, the christening of the young 
prince that lords it over a regiment of servants in 
the Tuileries to-day — and they may possibly con- 
tinue to stand there until they see the Napoleon 
dynasty swept away and the banners of a great Re- 
public floating above its ruins. I wish these old 
parties could speak. They could tell a tale worth 
the listening to. 

They say that a pagan temple stood where Notre 
Dame now stands, in the old Roman days, eighteen 
or twenty centuries ago — remains of it are still pre- 
served in Paris; and that a Christian church took 
its place about A. D. 300; another took the place 
of that in A. D. 500; and that the foundations of 
the present cathedral were laid about A. D. 1 100. 
The ground ought to be measurably sacred by this 
time, one would think. One portion of this noble 
old edifice is suggestive of the quaint fashions of 
ancient times. It was built by Jean Sans-Peur, 
Duke of Burgundy, to set his conscience at rest — 
he had assassinated the Duke of Orleans. Alas! 
those good old times are gone, when a murderer 
could wipe the stain from his name and soothe his 
troubles to sleep simply by getting out his bricks 
and mortar and building an addition to a church. 

The portals of the great western front are bisected 
by square pillars. They took the central one away^ 
in 1852, on the occasion of thanksgivings for the 



The Innocents Abroad 179 

refnstitution of the Presidential power — but precious 
soon they had occasion to reconsider that motion 
and put it back again ! And they did. 

We loitered through the grand aisles for an hour 
or two, staring up at the rich stained-glass windows 
embellished with blue and yellow and crimson saints 
and martyrs, and trying to admire the numberless 
great pictures in the chapels, and then we were ad- 
mitted to the sacristy and shown the magnificent 
robes which the Pope wore when he crowned Napo- 
leon I ; a wagon-load of solid gold and silver uten- 
sils used in the great public processions and cere- 
monies of the church; some nails of the true cross, 
a fragment of the cross itself, a part of the crown 
of thorns. We had already seen a large piece of the 
true cross in a church in the Azores, but no nails. 
They showed us likewise the bloody robe which that 
Archbishop of Paris wore who exposed his sacred 
person and braved the wrath of the insurgents of 
1848, to mount the barricades and hold aloft the 
olive branch of peace in the hope of stopping the 
slaughter. His noble effort cost him his life. He 
was shot dead. They showed us a cast of his face, 
taken after death, the bullet that killed him, and the 
two vertebrae in which it lodged. These people 
have a somewhat singular taste in the matter of 
relics. Ferguson told us that the silver cross which 
the good archbishop wore at his girdle was seized 
and thrown into the Seine, where it lay embedded 
m the mud for fifteen years, and then an angel ap- 



180 The Innocents Abroad 

peared to a priest and told him where to dive for it; 
he did dive for it and got it, and now it is there on 
exhibition at Notre Dame, to be inspected by any- 
body who feels an interest in inanimate objects of 
miraculous intervention. 

Next we went to visit the Morgue, that horrible 
receptacle for the dead who die mysteriously and 
leave the manner of their taking off a dismal secret. 
We stood before a grating and looked through into 
a room which was hung all about with the clothing 
of dead men; coarse blouses, water-soaked; the 
delicate garments of women and children ; patrician 
vestments, flecked and stabbed and stained with red; 
a hat that was crushed and bloody. On a slanting 
stone lay a drowned man, naked, swollen, purple; 
clasping the fragment of a broken bush with a grip 
which death had so petrified that human strength 
could not u#iloose it — mute witness of the last de- 
spairing effort to save the life that was doomed 
beyond all help, A stream of water trickled cease- 
lessly over the hideous face. We knew that the 
body and the clothing were there for identification 
by friends, but still we wondered if anybody could 
love that repulsive object or grieve for its loss. We 
grew meditative and wondered if, some forty years 
ago, when the mother of that ghastly thing was 
dandling it upon her knee, and kissing it and petting 
it and displaying it with satisfied pride to the passers- 
by, a prophetic vision of this dread ending ever 
flitted through her brain. I half feared that the 



The Innocents Abroad 18! 

mother, or the wife or a brother of the dead man 
might come while we stood there, but nothing of 
the kind occurred. Men and women came, and 
some looked eagerly in, and pressed their faces 
against the bars; others glanced carelessly at the 
body, and turned away with a disappointed look — 
people, I thought, who live upon strong excite- 
ments, and who attend the exhibitions of the 
Morgue regularly, just as other people go to see 
theatrical spectacles every night. When one of 
these looked in and passed on, I could not help 
thinking — 

**Now this don't afford you any satisfaction — -a 
party with his head shot off is what fou need/' 

One night we went to the celebrated Jardin 
Mabilley but only stayed a little while. We wanted 
to see some of this kind of Paris life, however, and 
therefore the next night we went to a similar place 
of entertainment in a great garden in the suburb of 
Asni^res. We went to the railroad depot, toward 
evening, and Ferguson got tickets for a second-class 
carriage. Such a perfect jam of people I have not 
often seen — but there was no noise, no disorder, 
no rowdyism. Some of the women and young girls 
that entered the train we knew to be of the deini- 
mondcy but others we were not at all sure about. 

The girls and women in our carriage behaved 
themselves modestly and becomingly all the way 
out, except that they smoked. When we arrived at 
the garden in Asnieres, we paid a franc or two ad- 



182 The Innocents Abroad 

mission, and entered a place which had flower-beds 
in it, and grass-plats, and long, curving rows of 
ornamental shrubbery, with here and there a secluded 
bower convenient for eating ice-cream in. We moved 
along the sinuous gravel walks, with the great con- 
course of girls and young men, and suddenly a 
domed and filigreed white temple, starred over and 
over and over again with brilliant gas jets, burst 
upon us like a fallen sun. Near by was a large, 
handsome house with its ample front illuminated in 
the same way, and above its roof floated the Star 
Spangled Banner of America. 

**Welir' I said. **How is this?" It nearly 
took my breath away. 

Ferguson said an American — a New Yorker — > 
kept the place, and was carrying on quite a stirring 
opposition to the Jardin Mabille, 

Crowds, composed of both sexes and nearly all 
ages, were frisking about the garden or sitting in the 
open air in front of the flagstaff and the temple, 
drinking wine and coffee, or smoking. The dancing 
had not begun yet. Ferguson said there was to be 
an exhibition. The famous Blondin was going to 
perform on a tight rope in another part of the garden. 
We went thither. Here the light was dim, and the 
masses of people were pretty closely packed together. 
And now I made a mistake which any donkey might 
make, but a sensible man never. I committed an 
error which I find myself repeating every day of my 
life. Standing right before a young lady, I said : 



The Innocents At)roa(l 183 

" Dan, just look at this girl, how beautiful she 
Is!'* 

' I thank you more for the evident sincerity of 
the compliment, sir, than for the extraordinary 
publicity you have given to it!** This in good, 
pure English. 

We took a walk, but my spirits were very, very 
sadly dampened. I did not feel right comfortable 
for some time afterward. Why will people be so 
stupid as to suppose themselves the only foreigners 
among a crowd of ten thousand persons ? 

But Blondin came out shortly. He appeared on 
a stretched cable, far away above the sea of tossing 
hats and handkerchiefs, and in the glare of the hun- 
dreds of rockets that whizzed heavenward by him he 
looked like a wee insect. He balanced his pole and 
walked the length of his rope — two or three hun- 
dred feet; he came back and got a man and carried 
him across ; he returned to the center and danced a 
jig; next he performed some gymnastic and balanc- 
ing feats too perilous to afford a pleasant spectacle ; 
and he finished by fastening to his person a thou- 
sand Roman candles, Catherine wheels, serpents and 
rockets of all manner of brilliant colors, setting them 
on fire all at once and walking and waltzing across 
his rope again in a blinding blaze of glory that Ht up 
the garden and the people's faces like a great con- 
flagration at midnight. 

The dance had begun, and we adjourned to the 
temple. Within it was a drinking-saloon ; and all 



184 The Innocents Abroad 

around it was a broad circular platform for the 
dancers. I backed up against the wall of the temple, 
and waited. Twenty sets formed, the music struck 
up, and then — I placed my hands before my face 
for very shame. But I looked through my fingers. 
They were dancing the renowned ''^Can-can,''* A 
handsome girl in the set before me tripped forward 
lightly to meet the opposite gentleman — tripped 
back again, grasped her dresses vigorously on 
both sides with her hands, raised them pretty high, 
danced an extraordinary jig that had more activit}; 
and exposure about it than any jig I ever saw be- 
fore, and then, drawing her clothes still higher, she 
advanced gaily to the center and launched a vicious 
kick full at her vis-a-vis that must infallibly have 
removed his nose if he had been seven feet high. It 
was a mercy he was only six. 

That is the can-ca7t. The idea of it is to dance as 
wildly, as noisily, as furiously as you can ; expose 
yourself as much as possible if you are a woman ; 
and kick as high as you can, no matter which sex 
you belong to. There is no word of exaggeration 
in this. Any of the staid, respectable, aged people 
who were there that night can testify to the truth of 
that statement. There were a good many such 
people present, I suppose French morality is not 
of that strait-laced description which is shocked at 
trifles, 

I moved aside and took a general view of the can- 
can. Shouts, laughter, furious music, a bewildering 



The Innocents Abroad 185 

chaos of darting and intermingling forms, stormy 
jerking and snatching of gay dresses, bobbing heads^ 
flying arms, lightning flashes of white-stockinged 
calves and dainty slippers in the air, and then a 
grand final rush, riot, a terrific hubbub, and a wild 
stampede ! Heavens ! Nothing like it has been 
seen on earth since trembling Tam O'Shanter saw 
the devil and the witches at their orgies that stormy 
night in ** Alloway's auld haunted kirk." 

We visited the Louvre, at a time when we had no 
silk purchases in view, and looked at its miles of 
paintings by the old masters. Some of them were 
beautiful, but at the same time they carried such 
evidences about them of the cringing spirit of those 
great men that we found small pleasure in examining 
them. Their nauseous adulation of princely patrons 
was more prominent to me and chained my attention 
more surely than the charms of color and expression 
which are claimed to be in the pictures. Gratitude 
for kindnesses is well, but it seems to me that some 
of those artists carried it so far that it ceased to be 
gratitude, and became worship. If there is a plau- 
sible excuse for the worship of men, then by all 
means let us forgive Rubens and his brethren. 

But I will drop the subject, lest I say something 
about the old masters that might as well be left 
unsaid. 

Of course we drove in the Bois de Boulogney that 
limitless park, with its forests, its lakes, its cascades, 
and its broad avenues. There were thousands upon 



186 The Innocents Abroad 

thousands of vehicles abroad, and the scene was full 
of life and gayety„ There were very common hacks, 
with father and mother and all the children in them ; 
conspicuous little open carriages with celebrated 
ladles of questionable reputation in them; there 
were Dukes and Duchesses abroad, with gorgeous 
footmen perched behind, and equally gorgeous out- 
riders perched on each of the six horses ; there were 
blue and silver, and green and gold, and pink and 
black, and all sorts and descriptions of stunning and 
startling liveries out, and I almost yearned to be a 
flunkey myself, for the sake of the fine clothes. 

But presently the Emperor came along and he 
outshone them all- He was preceded by a body- 
guard of gentlemen on horseback in showy uniforms, 
his carriage horses (there appeared to be somewhere 
in the remote neighborhood of a thousand of them) 
were bestridden by gallant looking fellows, also in 
stylish uniforms, and after the carriage followed 
another detachment of body-guards, Everybody 
get out of the way ; everybody bowed to the Em- 
peror and his friend the Sultan, and they went by 
on a swinging trot and disappeared. 

I will not describe the Bois de Boulogne. I can- 
not do it, It is simply a beautiful, cultivated, end- 
less, wonderful wilderness It is an enchanting 
placCc It IS in Paris, now, one may say, but a 
crumbling old cross in one portion of it reminds one 
that it was not always so. The cross marks the spot 
where a celebrated troubadour was waylaid and mur- 



The Innocents Abroad 187 

dered in the fourteenth century. It was in this park 
that that fellow with an unpronounceable name made 
the attempt upon the Russian Czar's life last spring 
with a pistol. The bullet struck a tree. Ferguson 
showed us the place. Now in America that interest- 
ing tree would be chopped down or forgotten 
within the next five years, but it will be treasured 
here. The guides will point it out to visitors for 
the next eight hundred years, and when it decays 
and falls down they will put up another there and go 
on with the same old story iust the same. 



CHAPTER XV. 

ONE of our pleasantest visits was to P^re la 
Chaise, the national burying-ground of 
France, the honored resting-place of some of her 
greatest and best children, th.e last home of scores 
of illustrious men and women who were born to no 
titles, but achieved fame by their own energy and 
their own genius. It is a solemn city of winding 
streets, and of miniature marble temples and man- 
sions of the dead gleaming white from out a wilder- 
ness of foliage and fresh flowers. Not every city is 
so well peopled as this, or has so ample an area 
within its walls. Few palaces exist in any city that 
are so exquisite in design, so rich in art, so costly 
in material, so graceful, so beautiful. 

We had stood in the ancient church of St. Denis, 
where the marble effigies of thirty generations of 
kings and queens lay stretched at length upon the 
tombs, and the sensations invoked were startling and 
novel; the curious armor, the obsolete costumes, 
the placid faces, the hands placed palm to palm in 
eloquent supplication — it was a vision of gray 
antiquity^ It seemed curious enough to be standing 



The Innocents Abroad 189 

face to face, as it were, with old Dagobert I, and 
Clovis and Charlemagne, those vague, colossal 
heroes, those shadows, those myths of a thousand 
years ago ! I touched their dust-covered faces with 
my finger, but Dagobert was deader than the sixteen 
centuries that have passed over him, Clovis slept 
well after his labor for Christ, and old Charlemagne 
went on dreaming of his paladins, of bloody Ronces- 
valles, and gave no heed to me. 

The great names of Pere la Chaise impress one, 
too, but differently. There the suggestion brought 
constantly to his mind is, that this place is sacred 
to a nobler royalty — the royalty of heart and brain. 
Every faculty of mind, every noble trait of human 
nature, every high occupation which men engage in» 
seems represented by a famous name. The effect is 
a curious medley, Davoust and Massena, who 
wrought in many a battle-tragedy, are here, and so 
also is Rachel, of equal renown in mimic tragedy on 
the stage. The Abb6 Sicard sleeps here — the first 
great teacher of the deaf and dumb — a man whose 
heart went out to every unfortunate, and whose life 
was given to kindly offices in their service ; and not 
far off, in repose and peace at last, lies Marshal 
Ney, whose stormy spirit knew no music like the 
bugle call to arms. The man who originated public 
gas lighting, and that other benefactor who intro- 
duced the cultivation of the potato and thus blessed 
millions of his starving countrymen, lie with the 
Prince of Masserano, and with exiled queens and 



190 title Innocents Abroad 

princes of Further India. Gay-Lussac, the chemist ^^ 
Laplace, the astronomer; Larrey, the surgeon; de 
S^ze, the advocate, are here, and with them are 
Talma, Bellini, Rubini; de Balzac, Beaumarchais, 
Beranger; Moli^re and Lafontaine, and scores of 
other men whose names and whose worthy labors 
are as familiar in the remote byplaces of civilization 
as are the historic deeds of the kings and princes 
that sleep in the marble vaults of St. Denis. 

But among the thousands and thousands of tombs 
in P^re la Chaise, there is one that no man, no 
woman, no youth of either sex, ever passes by with- 
out stopping to examine. Every visitor has a sort 
of indistinct idea of the history of its dead, and 
comprehends that homage is due there, but not one 
in twenty thousand clearly remembers the story of 
that tomb and its romantic occupants. This is the 
grave of Abelard and Heloise — a grave which has 
been more revered, more widely known, more writ- 
ten and sung about and wept over, for seven hun- 
dred years, than any other in Christendom, save 
only that of the Saviour. All visitors linger pen- 
sively about it ; all young people capture and carry 
away keepsakes and mementoes of it; all Parisian 
youths and maidens who are disappointed in love 
come there to bail out when they are full of tears ; 
yea, many stricken lovers make pilgrimages to this 
shrine from distant provinces to weep and wail and 
'* grit** their teeth over their heavy sorrows, and to 
purchase the sympathies of the chastened spirits of 



The Innocents Aoroad 191 

that tomb with offerings of immortelles and budding 
flowers. 

Go when you will, you find somebody snuffling 
over that tomb. Go when you will, you find it 
furnished with those bouquets and immortelles. Go 
when you will, you find a gravel train from Marseilles 
arriving to supply the deficiencies caused by 
memento-cabbaging vandals whose affections have 
miscarried 

Yet who really knows the story of Abelard and 
Heloise? Precious few people. The names are 
perfectly familiar to everybody^ and that is about 
alL With infinite pains I have acquired a knowledge 
of that history, and I propose to narrate it here, 
partly for the honest information of the public and 
partly to show that public that they have been wast- 
ing a good deal of marketable sentiment very un- 
necessarily. 

STORY OF ABELARD AND HELOISE. 

Heloise was born seven hundred and sixty-six 
years ago. She may have had parents. There i§ 
no telling. She lived with her uncle Fulbert, a 
canon of the cathedral of Paris, I do not know 
what a canon of a cathedral Ks, but that is what he 
was. He was nothing more than a sort of a moun- 
tain howitzer, likely, because they had no heavy 
artillery in those days. Suffice it, then, that Heloise 
lived with her uncle the howitzer, and was happy. 
She spent the most of her childhood in the convent of 



192 itie Innocents Abroad 

Irgenteuil — never heard of Argenteuil before, but 
suppose there was really such a place. She then 
Teturned to her uncle, the old gun, or son of a gun, 
as the case may be, and he taught her to write and 
speak Latin, v/hich was the language of h'terature 
and polite society at that period. 

Just at this time, Pierre Abelard, who had already 
made himself widely famous as a rhetorician, came 
to found a school of rhetoric in Paris, The origi- 
nality of his principles, his eloquence, and his great 
physical strength and beauty created a profound 
sensation. He saw Heloise, and was captivated by 
her blooming youth, her beauty, and her charming 
disposition. Rewrote to her; she answered. He 
wrote again, she answered again. He was now in 
love. He longed to know her — to speak to her face 
to face. 

His school was near Fulbert's house- He asked 
Fulbert to allow him to call. The good old swivel 
saw here a rare opportunity; his niece, whom he so 
much loved, would absorb knowledge from this 
man, and it would not cost him a cent. Such was 
Fulbert — penurious. 

Fulbert' s first name is not mentioned by any 
author, which is unfortunate. However, George W. 
Fulbert will answer for him as well as any other. 
We will let him go at that. He asked Abelard to 
teach her. 

Abelard was glad enough of the opportunity* He 
eaine often and stayed long. A letter of his showf 



The innocents Abroitd 1951 

kk its very first sentence that he came under that 
friendly roof, like a cold-hearted villain as he was, 
with the deliberate intention of debauching a con- 
fiding, innocent girl. This is the letter: - 

" I cannot cease to be astonished at the simplicity of Fulbert; I was 
as much surprised as if he had placed a lamb in the power of a hungry 
Wolf. Heloise and I, under pretext of study, gave ourselves up wholly 
to love, and the solitude that love seeks our studies procured for us. 
Books were open before us, but we spoke oftener of love than philosophy, 
ftnd kisses came more readily from our lips than words.'* 

And so, exulting over an honorable confidence 
which to Lis degraded instinct was a ludicrous 
** simplicity,'* this unmanly Abelard seduced the 
niece of the man whose guest he was. Paris found 
it out. Fulbert was told of it— -told often — but 
refused to believe it. He could not comprehend 
how a man could be so depraved as to use the sacred 
protection and security of hospitality as a means for 
the commission of such a crime as that. But when 
he heard the rowdies in the streets singing the love- 
songs of Abelard to Heloise, the case was too plain 
— love-songs come not properly within the teachings 
of rhetoric and philosophy. 

He drove Abelard from his house. Abelard re- 
turned secretly and carried Pleloise away to Palais, 
in Brittany, his native country. Here, shortly after- 
ward, she bore a son, who, from his rare beauty, 
was surnamed Astrolabe — William G. The glrVs 
flight enraged Fulbert, and he longed for vengeance^ 
but feared to strike lest retaliation visit Ff eloise - 
t3* 



194 The innocents Abroad 

for he still loved her tenderly. At length Abelard 
offered to marry Heloise — but on a shameful con- 
dition : that the marriage should be kept secret from 
the world, to the end that (while her good name 
remained a wreck, as before) his priestly reputation 
might be kept untarnished. It was like that mis- 
creant. Fulbert saw his opportunity and consented. 
He would see the parties married, and then violate 
the confidence of the man who had taught him that 
trick ; he would divulge the secret and so remove 
somewhat of the obloquy that attached to his niece's 
fame. But the niece suspected his scheme. She 
refused the marriage at first ; she said Fulbert would 
betray the secret to save her, and besides, she did 
not wish to drag down a lover who was so gifted, so 
honored by the world, and who had such a splendid 
career before him. It was noble, self-sacrificing 
love, and characteristic of the pure-souled HeloisCj 
but it was not good sense. 

But she was overruled, and the private marriage 
took place. Now for Fulbert! The heart so 
wounded should be healed at last ; the proud spirit 
so tortured should find rest again; the humbled 
head should be lifted up once more. He proclaimed 
the marriage in the high places of the city, and re- 
joiced that dishonor had departed from his house. 
But lo ! Abelard denied the marriage ! Heloise 
denied it ! The people, knowing the former circum- 
stances, might have believed Fulbert, had only 
\belard denied it, but when the person chiefly inter 



The Innocents Abroad 195 

ested — the girl herself — denied it, they laughed 
despairing Fulbert to scorn. 

The poor canon of the cathedral of Paris was 
spiked again. The last hope of repairing the wrong 
that had been done his house was gone. What 
next? Human nature suggested revenge. He com- 
passed it. The historian says: 

" RuflSans, hired by Fulbert, fell upon Abelard by night, and in- 
flicted upon him a terrible and nameless mutilation.** 

I am seeking the last resting-place of those * * ruffi- 
ans.'* When I find it I shall shed some tears on it, 
and stack up some bouquets and immortelles, and 
cart away from it some gravel whereby to remember 
that howsoever blotted by crime their lives may have 
been, these ruffians did one just deed, at any rate, 
albeit it was not warranted by the strict letter of the 
law. 

Heloise entered a convent and gave good-bye to 
the world and its pleasures for all time. For twelve 
years she never heard of Abelard — never even heard 
his name mentioned. She had become prioress of 
Argenteuil, and led a life of complete seclusion. 
She happened one day to see a letter written by him, 
in which he narrated his own history. She cried 
over it, and wrote him. He answered, addressing 
her as his** sister in Christ.'* They continued to 
correspond, she in the unweighed language of un- 
wavering affection, he in the chilly phraseology of 
the polished rhetorician. She poured out her heart 



196 The Innocents Abroad 

in passionate, disjointed sentences; he replied with 
finished essays, divided deliberately into heads and 
sub-heads, premises and argument. She showered 
upon him the tenderest epithets that love could 
devise, he addressed her from the North Pole of his 
frozen heart as the ** Spouse of Christ!" The 
abandoned villain! 

On account of her too easy government of her 
nuns, some disreputable irregularities were discov- 
ered among them, and the Abbot of St. Denis broke 
up her establishment. Abelard was the official head 
of the monastery of St. Gildas de Ruys, at that 
time, and when he heard of her homeless condition 
a sentiment of pity was aroused in his breast (it is a 
wonder the unfamiliar emotion did not blow his 
head off), and he placed her and her troop in the 
little oratory of the Paraclete, a religious establish- 
ment which he had founded. She had many priva- 
tions and sufferings to undergo at first, but her worth 
and her gentle disposition won influential friends for 
her, and she built up a wealthy and flourishing 
nunnery. She became a great favorite with the 
heads of the church, and also the people, though 
she seldom appeared in public. She rapidly ad- 
vanced in esteem, in good report and in usefulness, 
and Abelard as rapidly lost ground. The Pope so 
honored her that he made her the head of her order. 
Abelard, a man of splendid talents, and ranking as 
the first debater of his time, became timid, irreso- 
lute, and distrustful of his powers He only needed 



The Innocents Abroad 19> 

a great misfortune to topple him from the high posi- 
tion he held in the world of intellectual excellence, 
and it came. Urged by kings and princes to meet 
the subtle St. Bernard in debate and crush him, he 
stood up in the presence of a royal and illustrious 
assemblage, and when his antagonist had finished he 
looked about him, and stammered a commencement; 
but his courage failed him, the cunning of his tongue 
was gone; with his speech unspoken, he trembled 
and sat down, a disgraced and vanquished champion. 

He died a nobody, and was buried at Clunyj 
A.D. 1 1 44. They removed his body to the Para- 
clete afterwards and when Keloise di^d, twenty years 
later, they buried her with him, in accordance with 
her last wish. He died at the ripe age of 64, and 
she at 63. After the bodies had remained entombed 
three hundred years, they were removed once more. 
They were removed again in 1 800, and finally, 
seventeen years afterward, they were taken up and 
transferred to Pere la Chaise, where they will remain 
in peace and quiet until it comes time for them to 
get up and move again. 

History is silent concerning the last acts of the 
mountain howitzer. Let the world say what it will 
about him, /, at least, shall always respect the 
memory and sorrow for the abused trust, and the 
broken heart, and the troubled spirit of the old 
smooth bore. Rest and repose be his! 

Such is the story of Abelard and Heloise. Such 
is the history that Lamartine has shed such cataracts 



108 The innocents Abroad 

of tears over But that man never could come 
within the influence of a subject in the least pathetic 
without overflowing his banks. He ought to be 
dammed — or leveed, I should more properly say. 
Such is the history — not as it is usually told, but as 
it is when stripped of the nauseous sentimentality 
that would enshrine for our loving worship a 
dastardly seducer like Pierre Abelard. I have not 
a word to say against the misused, faithful girl, and 
would not withhold from her grave a single one of 
those simple tributes which blighted youths and 
maidens offer to her memory, but I am sorry enough 
that I have not time and opportunity to write four 
or five volumes of my opinion of her friend the 
founder of the Parachute, or the Paraclete, or what- 
ever it was. 

The tons of sentiment I have wasted on that 
unprincipled humbug, in my ignorance ! I shall 
throttle down my emotions hereafter, about this sort 
of people, until I have read them up and know 
whether they are entitled to any tearful attentions or 
not. I wish I had my immortelles back, now, and 
that bunch of radishes. 

In Paris we often saw in shop windows the sign, 
"'English Spoken Herey^ just as one sees in the 
windows at home the sign, *''' Ici on parte frangaisej* 
We always invaded these places at once — and in- 
variably received the information, framed in faultless 
French, that the clerk who did the English for the 
establishment had just gone to dinner and would be 



The Innocents Abroad 199 

back in an hour — would Monsieur buy something? 
We wondered why those parties happened to take 
their dinners at such erratic and extraordinary 
hours, for we never called at a time when an exem- 
plary Christian would be in the least likely to be 
abroad on such an errand. The truth was, it was a 
base fraud — a snare to trap the unwary — chaff to 
catch fledglings with. They had no English- 
murdering clerk. They trusted to the sign to in- 
veigle foreigners into their lairs, and trusted to their 
own blandishments to keep them there till they 
bought something. 

We ferreted out another French imposition — a 
frequent sign to this effect: **All MANNER OP 
American Drinks Artistically Prepared 
Here.*' We procured the services of a gentleman 
experienced in the nomenclature of the American 
bar, and moved upon the works of one of these im^ 
postors. A bowing, aproned Frenchman skipped 
forward and said : 

** Que voulez les messieurs?'* I do not know 
what " Que voulez les messieurs ** means, but such 
was his remark. 

Our General said, "We will take a whisky- 
straight.** 

[A stare from the Frenchman.] 

** Well, if you don't know what that is, give us a 
champagne cock-tail." 

[A stare and a shrug.] 

"Well, then, give us a sherry cobbler/' 



200 The Innocents Abroad 

The Frenchman was checkmated. This was all 
Greek to him. 

** Give us a brandy smash !** 

The Frenchman began to back away, suspicious 
of the ominous vigor of the last order — began to 
back away, shrugging his shoulders and spreading 
his hands apologetically. 

The General followed him up and gained a com- 
plete victory. The uneducated foreigner could not 
even furnish a Santa Cruz Punch, an Eye-Opener, a 
Stone-Fence, or an Earthquake. It was plain that 
he was a wicked impostor. 

An acquaintance of mine said, the other day, that 
he was doubtless the only American visitor to the Ex- 
position who had had the high honor of being escorted 
by the Emperor's body-guard. I said with unob- 
trusive frankness that I was astonished that such a 
long-legged, lantern-jawed, unprepossessing looking 
specter as he should be singled out for a distinction 
like that, and asked how it came about. He said 
he had attended a great military review in the 
Champ de Mars^ some time ago, and while the 
multitude about him was growing thicker and thicker 
every moment, he observed an open space inside 
the railing. He left his carriage and went into it. 
He was the only person there, and so he had plenty 
of room, and the situation being central, he could 
see all the preparations going on about the field. 
By and by there was a sound of music, and soon 
the Emperor of the French and the Emperor of 



The Innocents Abroad 201 

Austria, escorted by the famous Cent GardeSy en- 
tered the inclosure. They seemed not to observe 
him, but directly, in response to a sign from the 
commander of the Guard, a young lieutenant came 
toward him with a file of his men following, halted; 
raised his hand and gave the military salute, and 
then said in a low voice that he was sorry to have to 
disturb a stranger and a gentleman, but the place 
was sacred to royalty. Then this New Jersey phan- 
tom rose up and bowed and begged pardon, then 
with the officer beside him, the file of men marching 
behind him, and with every mark of respect, he was 
escorted to his carriage by the imperial Cent Gardes ! 
The officer saluted again and fell back, the New 
Jersey sprite bowed in return and had presence of 
mind enough to pretend that he had simply called 
on a matter of private business with those emperors, 
and so waved them an adieu, and drove from the 
field ! 

Imagine a poor Frenchman ignorantly intruding 
upon a public rostrum sacred to some sixpenny 
dignitary in America. The police would scare him 
to death, first, with a storm of their elegant blas- 
phemy, and then pull him to pieces getting him 
away from there. We are measurably superior to 
the French in some things, but they are immeasur- 
ably our betters in others. 

Enough of Paris for the present. We have done 
our whole duty by it. We have seen the Tuileries, 
the Napoleon Column, the Madeleine, that wonder 



202 The Innocents Abroad 

of wonders the tomb of Napoleon, all the great. 
churches and museums, libraries, imperial palaces, 
and sculpture and picture galleries, the Pantheon, 
Jar din des Plantes^ the opera, the circus, the legis- 
lative body, the billiard-rooms, the barbers, the 
grisettes — 

Ah, the grisettes ! I had almost forgotten. They 
are another romantic fraud. They were (if you let 
the books of travel tell it) always so beautiful — so 
neat and trim, so graceful — so naYve and trusting — ^ 
so gentle, so winning — so faithful to their shop 
duties, so irresistible to buyers in their prattling 
'mportunity — so devoted to their poverty-stricken 
students of the Latin Quarter — so light hearted and 
happy on their Sunday picnics in the suburbs — and 
oh, so charmingly, so delightfully immoral ! 

Stuff ! For three or four days I was constantly 
saying : 

" Quick, Ferguson ! is that a grisette f** 

And he always said " No.** 

He comprehended, at last, that I wanted to see a 
grisette. Then he showed me dozens of them 
They were like nearly all the Frenchwomen I ever 
saw — homely. They had large hands, large feet, 
(arge mouths; they had pug noses as a general 
thing, and moustaches that not even good breeding 
could overlook; they combed their hair straight 
back without parting; they were ill-shaped, they 
were not winning, they were not graceful; I knew 
by their looks that they ate garlic and onions ; and 



The innocents Abroad 203 

lastly and finally, to my thinking it would be base 
flattery to call them immoral. 

Aroint thee, wench ! I sorrow for the vagabond 
student of the Latin Quarter now, even more than 
formerly I envied him. Thus topples to earth 
another idol of my infancy. 

We have seen everything, and to-morrow we go 
to Versailles. We shall see Paris only for a little 
while as we come back to take up our line of march 
for the ship, and so I may as well bid the beautiful 
city a regretful farewell. We shall travel many 
thousands of miles after we leave here, and visit 
many great cities, but we shall find none so enchant- 
ing as this. 

Some of our party have gone to England, intend- 
ing to take a roundabout course and rejoin the vessel 
at Leghorn or Naples, several weeks hence. We 
came near going to Geneva, but have concluded to 
return to Marseilles and go up through Italy from 
Genoa. 

1 will conclude this chapter with a remark that I 
am sincerely proud to be able to make — and glad, 
as well, that my comrades cordially indorse it, to 
wit : by far the handsomest women we have seen in 
France were born and reared in America. 

I feel, now, like a man who has redeemed a failing 
reputation and shed luster upon a dimmed escutch- 
eon, by a single just deed done at the eleventh hour. 

X-et the curtain fall, to slow music 



CHAPTER XVI. 

VERSAILLES! It is wonderfully beautiful ! You 
gaze, and stare, and try to understand that it 
is real, that it is on the earth, that it is not the 
Garden of Eden — but your brain grows giddy, 
stupefied by the world of beauty around you, and 
you half believe you are the dupe of an exquisite 
dream. The scene thrills one like mihtary music ! 
A noble palace, stretching its ornamented front 
block upon block away, till it seemed that it would 
never end ; a grand promenade before it, whereon 
the armies of an empire might parade ; all about it 
rainbows of flowers, and colossal statues that were 
almost numberless, and yet seemed only scattered 
over the ample space ; broad flights of stone steps 
leading down from the promenade to lower grounds 
of the park — stairways that whole regiments might 
stand to arms upon and have room to spare ; vast 
fountains whose great bronze efligies discharged 
rivers of sparkling water into the air and mingled a 
hundred curving jets together in forms of matchless 
beauty; wide grass-carpeted avenues that branched 
hither and thither in every direction and wandered 

<S04.) 



The Innocents Abroad! 205 

to seemingly interminable distances, walled all the 
way on either side with compact ranks of leafy trees 
whose branches met above and formed arches as 
faultless and as symmetrical as ever were carved in 
stone ; and here and there v/ere glimpses of sylvan 
lakes with miniature ships glassed in their surfaces. 
And everywhere — on the palace steps, and the great 
promenade, around the fountains, among the trees, 
and far under the arches of the endless avenues, 
hundreds and hundreds of people in gay costumes 
walked or ran or danced, and gave to the fairy 
picture the life and animation which was all of per- 
fection it could have lacked. 

It was worth a pilgrimage to see. Everything is 
on so gigantic a scale. Nothing is small — nothing 
is cheap. The statues are all large ; the palace is 
grand; the park covers a fair-sized county; the 
avenues are interminable. All the distances and all 
the dimensions about Versailles are vast. I used to 
think the pictures exaggerated these distances and 
these dimensions beyond all reason, and that they 
made Versailles more beautiful than it was possible 
for any place in the world to be. I know now that 
the pictures never came up to the subject in any re- 
spect, and that no painter could represent Versailles 
on canvas as beautiful as it is in reality. I used to 
abuse Louis XIV for spending two hundred millions 
of dollars in creating this marvelous park, when 
bread was so scarce with some of his subjects ; but 
I have forgiven him now. He took a tract of land 



:X06 The innocents Abroad 

sixty miles in circumference and set to work to 
make thi? park and build this palace and a road tc 
it from Paris. He kept 36,000 men employed daily 
on it, and the labor was so unhealthy that they used 
to die and be hauled off by cart-loads every night. 
The wife of a nobleman of the time speaks of this as 
^n** inconvenience y** but naTvely remarks that **it 
does not seem worthy of attention in the happy 
state of tranquillity we now enjoy.'* 

I always thought ill of people at home, who 
trimmed their shrubbery into pyramids and squares 
and spires and all manner of iinnatural shapes, and 
when I saw the same thing being practiced in this 
great park I began to feel dissatisfied. But I soon 
saw the idea of the thing and the wisdom of it. 
They seek the general effect. We distort a dozen 
sickly trees into unaccustomed shapes in a little 
yard no bigger than a dining-room, and then surely 
they look absurd enough. But here they take two 
hundred thousand tall forest trees and set them in a 
double row; allow no sign of leaf or branch to grow 
on the trunk lower down than six feet above the 
ground ; from that point the boughs begin to pro- 
ject, and very gradually they extend outward further 
and further till they meet overhead, and a faultless 
tunnel of foliage is formed. The arch is mathe- 
matically precise. The effect is then very fine. 
They make trees take fifty different shapes, and so 
these quaint effects are infinitely varied and pictur- 
esque. The trees in no two avenues are shaped 



The Innocents Abroad 207 

alike, and consequently the eye is not fatigued with 
anything in the nature of monotonous uniformity, 
I will drop this subject now, leaving it to others to 
determine how these people manage to make endless 
ranks of lofty forest trees grow to just a certain 
thickness of trunk (say a foot and two-thirds) ; how 
they make them spring to precisely the same height 
for miles; how they make them grow so close 
together ; how they compel one huge limb to spring 
from the same identical spot on each tree and form 
the main sweep of the arch; and how all these things 
are kept exactly in the same condition, and in the 
same exquisite shapeliness and symmetry month 
after month and year after year — for I have tried to 
reason out the problem, and have failed 

We walked through the great hall of sculpture 
and the one hundred and fifty galleries of paintings 
in the palace of Versailles, and felt that to be in 
such a place was useless unless one had a whole year 
at his disposal. These pictures are all battle-scenesj 
and only one solitary little canvas among them all 
treats of anythmg but great French victories. We 
wandered, also, through the Grand Trianon and the 
Petit Trianon, those monuments of royal prodigahty, 
and with histories so mournful — filled, as it isj 
with souvenirs of Napoleon the First, and three dead 
kings and as many queens. In one sumptuous bed 
they had all slept in succession, but no one occupies 
it now. In a large dining-room stood the table at 
which Louis XIV and his mistress, Madame Main< 



208 The Innocents Abroad 

tenon, and after them Louis XV, and Pompadour, 
had sat at their meals naked and unattended — for 
the table stood upon a trap-door, which descended 
with it to regions below when it was necessary to 
replenish its dishes. In a room of the Petit Trianon 
stood the furniture, just as poor Marie Antoinette 
left it when the mob came and dragged her and the 
King to Paris, never to return. Near at hand, in 
the stables, were prodigious carriages that showed 
no color but gold — carriages used by former kings 
of France on state occasions, and never used now 
save when a kingly head is to be crowned, or ar 
imperial infant christened. And with them were 
some curious sleighs, whose bodies were shaped 
like Hons, swans, tigers, etc. — vehicles that had once 
been handsome with pictured designs and fine work- 
manship, but were dusty and decaying now. They 
had their history. When Louis XIV had finished 
the Grand Trianon, he told Maintenon he had 
created a Paradise for her, and asked if she could 
think of anything now to wish for. He said he 
wished the Trianon to be perfection — nothing less. 
She said she could think of but one thing — it was 
summer, and it was balmy France — yet she would like 
well to sleigh-ride in the leafy avenues of Versailles ! 
The next morning found miles and miles of grassy 
avenues spread thick with snowy salt and sugar, and 
a procession of those quaint sleighs waiting to re- 
ceive the chief concubine of the gayest and most 
unprincipled court that France has ever seen t 



llie Innocents Atroad 209 

From sumptuous Versailles, with its palaces, its 
statues, its gardens and its fountains, we journeyed 
back to Paris and sought its antipodes — the Fau- 
bourg St. Antoine, Little, narrow streets; dirty 
children blockading them ; greasy, slovenly women 
capturing and spanking them; filthy dens on first 
floors, with rag stores h them (the heaviest business 
in the Faubourg is the chiffonier's) ; other filthy 
dens where whole suits of second and third-hand 
clothing are sold at prices that would ruin any pro- 
prietor who did not steal his stock ; still other filthy 
dens where they sold groceries — sold them by the 
half-pennyworth — five dollars would buy the man 
out, good-will and all. Up these little crooked 
streets they will murder a man for seven dollars and 
dump the body in the Seine. And up some other 
of these streets — most of them, I should say — live 
lorettes. 

All through this Faubourg St. Antoine, misery, 
poverty, vice, and crime go hand in hand, and the 
evidences of it stare one in the face from every side. 
Here the people live who begin the revolutions. 
Whenever there is anything of that kind to be done, 
they are always ready. They take as much genuine 
pleasure in building a barricade as they do in cutting 
a throat or shoving a friend into the Seine. It is 
these savage-looking ruffians who storm the splen- 
did halls of the Tuileries, occasionally, and swarm 
into Versailles when a king is to be called to 
account. 



210 The Innocents Aoroad 

But they will build no more barricades, they wiB 
break no more soldiers* heads with paving-stones. 
Louis Napoleon has taken care of all that. He is 
annihilating the crooked streets, and building in their 
stead noble boulevards as straight as an arrow — 
avenues which a cannon-ball could traverse from end 
to end without meeting an obstruction more irre- 
sistible than the flesh and bones of men — boule- 
vards whose stately edifices will never afford refuges 
and plotting-places for starving, discontented revolu- 
tion-breeders. Five of these great thoroughfares 
radiate from one ample center — a center which is 
exceedingly well adapted to the accommodation of 
heavy artillery. The mobs used to riot there, but 
they must seek another rallying-place in future. 
And this ingenious Napoleon paves the streets of his 
great cities with a smooth, compact composition of 
asphaltum and sand. No more barricades of flag- 
stones — =no more assaulting his Majesty's troops 
with cobbles. I cannot feel friendly toward my 
quondam fellow-American, Napoleon III, espe- 
cially at this time,* when in fancy I see his credulous 
victim, Maximilian, lying stark and stiff in Mexico, 
and his maniac widow watching eagerly from her 
French asylum for the form that will never come — 
but I do admire his nerve, his calm self-reliance, his 
shrewd good sense. 

•July, 1867. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

WE had a pleasant journey of it seaward again. 
We found that for the three past nights our 
ship had been in a state of war. The first night the 
sailors of a British ship, being happy with grog, 
came down on the pier and challenged our sailors to 
a free fight. They accepted with alacrity, repaired 
to the pier and gained — -their share of a drawn 
battle. Several bruised and bloody members of 
both parties were carried off by the police, and im- 
prisoned until the following morning. The next 
night the British boys came again to renew the fight, 
but our men had had strict orders to remain on 
board and out of sight. They did so, and the 
besieging party grew noisy, and more and more 
abusive as the fact became apparent (to them) that 
our men were afraid to come out. They went away^ 
finally, with a closing burst of ridicule and offensive 
epithets. The third night they came again, and were 
more obstreperous than ever. They swaggered up 
and down the almost deserted pier, and hurled 
curses, obscenity, and stinging sarcasms at our crew. 
It was more than human nature could bear. The 
^> (an) 



21^ The Innocents Abroad 

executive officer ordered our men ashore — with 
instructions not to fight. They charged the British 
and gained a brilliant victory. I probably would 
not have mentioned this war had it ended differently. 
But I travel to learn, and I still remember that they 
picture no French defeats in the battle-galleries of 
Versailles. 

It was like home to us to step on board the com- 
fortable ship again, and smoke and lounge about hef 
breezy decks- And yet it was not altogether like 
home, either, because so many members of the 
family were away. We missed some pleasant faces 
which we would rather have found at dinner, and at 
night there were gaps in the euchre-parties which 
could not be satisfactorily filled. ** Moult.** was in 
England, Jack in Switzerland, Charley in Spam. 
Blucher was gone, none could tell where. But we 
were at sea again, and we had the stars and the 
ocean to look at, and plenty of room to meditate in. 

In due time the shores of Italy were sighted, and 
as we stood gazing from the decks early in the bright 
summer morning, the stately city of Genoa rose up 
out of the sea and flung back the sunlight from her 
hundred palaces. 

Here we rest, for the present — or rather, here 
we have been trying to rest, for some little time, but 
we run about too much to accomplish a great deal 
in that line. 

I would like to remain here. I had rather not go 
any further. There may be prettier women in 



The Innocents Abroad 213 

Europe, but I doubt it. The population of Genoa 
is 120,000; two-thirds of these are women, I think, 
and at least two-thirds of the women are beautiful. 
They are as dressy and as tasteful and as graceful 
as they could possibly be without being angels. 
However, angels are not very dressy, 7 believe. At 
least the angels in pictures are not they wear 
nothing but wings. But these Genoebe women do 
look so charming. Most of the young demoiselles 
are robed in a cloud of white fiom head to foot, 
though many trick themselves out more elaborately 
Nine-tenths of them wear nothing on their heads but 
a filmy sort of veil, which falls down their backs like 
a white mist. They are very fair, and many of 
them have blue eyes, but black and dreamy dark 
brown ones are met with of te nest. 

The ladies and gentlemen of Genoa have a 
pleasant fashion ot promenading in a large park on 
the top of a hir in the center of the city, from six 
till nine in the evening, and then eating ices in a 
neighboring garden an hour or two longer. We 
went to the park on Sunday evening. Two thou- 
sand persons were present, chiefly young ladies and 
gentlemen. The gentlemen were dressed in the very 
latest Paris fashions, and the robes of the ladies 
glinted among the trees like so many snow-flakes. 
The multitude moved round and round the park in 
a great procession. The bands played, and so did 
the fountains ; the moon and the gas-lamps lit up 
the scene, and altogether it was a brilliant and an 



214 The Innocents Abroad 

animated picture. I scanned every female face that 
passed, and it seemed to me that all were handsome. 
I never saw such a freshet of loveliness before. I do 
not see how a man of only ordinary decision of char- 
acter could marry here, because, before he could get 
his mind made up he would fall in love with some- 
body else* 

Never smoke any Italian tobacco. Never do it 
on any account. It makes me shudder to think 
what it must be made of. You cannot throw an old 
cigar **stub** down anywhere, but some vagabond 
will pounce upon it on the instant. I like to smoke 
a good deal, but it wounds my sensibilities to see 
one of these stub-hunters watching me out of the 
corners of his hungry eyes and calculating how long 
my cigar will be likely to last. It reminded me too 
painfully of that San Francisco undertaker who used 
to go to sick beds with his watch in his hand and 
time the corpse. One of these stub-hunters followed 
us all over the park last night, and we never had a 
smoke that was worth anything. We were always 
moved to appease him with the stub before the cigar 
was half gone, because he looked so viciously anxious. 
He regarded us as his own legitimate prey, by right 
of discovery, I think, because he drove off several 
other professionals who wanted to take stock in us. 

Now, they surely must chew up those old stubs, 
and dry and sell them for smoking tobacco. There- 
fore, give your custom to other than Italian brands 
of the article. 



The Innocents Abroad 215 

^'The Superb" and the ** City of Palaces " are 
names which Genoa has held for centuries. She is 
full of palaces, certainly, and the palaces are sump- 
tuous inside, but they are very rusty without, and 
make no pretensions to architectural magnificence, 
'• Genoa, the Superb," would be a fehcitous title if 
it referred to the women. 

We have visited several of the palaces — immense 
thick- walled piles, with great stone staircases, tessel- 
lated marble pavements on the floors (sometimes 
they make a mosaic work, of intricate designs, 
wrought in pebbles, or little fragments of marble 
laid in cement) , and grand salons hung with pictures 
by Rubens, Guido, Titian, Paul Veronese, and so 
on, and portraits of heads of the family, in plumed 
helmets and gallant coats of mail, and patrician 
ladies, in stunning costumes of centuries ago. But, 
of course, the folks were all out in the country for 
the summer, and might not have known enough to 
ask us to dinner if they had been at home, and so 
all the grand empty salonSy with their resounding 
pavements, their grim pictures of dead ancestors, 
and tattered banners with the dust of bygone cen- 
turies upon them, seemed to brood solemnly of 
death and the grave, and our spirits ebbed away. 
and our cheerfulness passed from us. We never 
went up to the eleventh story. We always began to 
suspect ghosts. There was always an undertaker- 
looking servant along, too, who handed us a pro- 
gramme, pointed to the picture that began the list 



216 The Innocents Abroad 

of the salon he was in, and then stood stiff and stark 
and unsmiling in his petrified Hvery till we were 
ready to move on to the next chamber, whereupon 
he marched sadly ahead and took up another malig- 
nantly respectful position as before. I wasted so 
much time praying that the roof would fall in on 
these dispiriting flunkeys that I had but little left to 
bestow upon palace and pictures. 

And besides, as in Paris, we had a guide. Perdi- 
tion catch all the guides. This one said he was the 
most gifted linguist in Genoa, as far as English was 
concerned, and that only two persons in the city 
beside himself could talk the language at all. He 
showed us the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, 
and after we had reflected in silent awe before it for 
fifteen minutes, he said it was not the birthplace of 
Columbus, but of Columbus's grandmother! When 
we demanded an explanation of his conduct he only 
shrugged his shoulders and answered in barbarous 
Italian. I shall speak further of this guide in a 
future chapter. All the information we got out of 
him we shall be able to carry along with us, I think. 

I have not been to church so often in a long time 
as I have in the last few weeks. The people in these 
old lands seem to make churches their specialty. 
Especially does this seem to be the case with the 
citizens of Genoa. I think there is a church every 
three or four hundred yards all over town. The 
streets are sprinkled from end to end with shovel- 
hatted, long-robed, well-fed priests, and the church 



The innocents Abroad 217 

bells by dozens are pealing all the day long, nearly. 
Every now and then one comes across a friar of 
orders gray, with shaven head, long, coarse robe^ 
rope girdle and beads, and with feet cased in sandals 
or entirely bare. These worthies suffer in the flesh, 
and do penance all their lives, I suppose, but they 
look like consummate famine-breeders. They are 
all fat and serene. 

The old Cathedral of San Lorenzo is about as 
notable a building as we have found in Genoa. It 
is vast, and has colonnades of noble pillars, and a 
great organ, and the customary pomp of gilded 
moldings, pictures, frescoed ceilings, and so forth, 
I cannot describe it, of course — it would require a 
good many pages to do that. But it is a curious 
place. They said that half of it — from the front 
door half way down to the altar — v/as a Jewish 
Synagogue before the Saviour was born, and that no 
alteration had been made in it since that time. We 
doubted the statement, but did it reluctantly. We 
would much rather have believed it. The place 
looked in too perfect repair to be so ancient. 

The main point of interest about the cathedral is 
the little Chapel of St. John the Baptist. They only 
allow women to enter it on one day in the year, on 
account of the animosity they still cherish against 
the sex because of the murder of the Saint to gratify 
a caprice of Herodias. In this chapel is a marble 
chest, in which, they told us, were the ashes of St. 
John; and around it was wound a chain, which, 



218 The innocents Abroad 

they said, had confined him when he was in prison. 
We did not desire to disbelieve these statements, and 
yet we could not feel certain that they were correct 
— partly because we could have broken that chain, 
and so could St. John, and partly because we had 
seen St. John's ashes before, in another church. 
We could not bring ourselves to think St. John had 
two sets of ashes. 

They also showed us a portrait of the Madonna 
which was painted by St. Luke, and it did not look 
half as old and smoky as some of the pictures by 
Rubens, We could not help admiring the Apostle's 
modesty in never once mentioning in his writings 
that he could paint. 

But isn't this relic matter a little overdone? We 
find a piece of the true cross in every old church we 
go into, and some of the nails that held it together. 
I would not like to be positive, but I think we have 
seen as much as a keg of these nailse Then there 
is the crown of thorns ; they have part of one in 
Sainte Chapelle, in Paris, and part of one, also, in 
Notre Dame. And as for bones of St. Denis, I feel 
certain we have seen enough of them to duplicate 
him, if necessary. 

I only meant to write about the churches, but I 
keep wandering from the subject. I could say that 
the Church of the Annunciation is a wilderness of 
beautiful columns, of statues, gilded moldings, and 
pictures almost countless, but that would give no 
one an entirely perfect idea of the thing, and so 



the innocents Abroad ^1^ 

where Is the use? One family built the whole 
edifice, and have got money left. There Is where 
the mystery lies. We had an idea at first that only 
a mint could have survived the expense. 

These people here live in the heaviest, highest, 
broadest, darkest, solidest houses one can imagine. 
Each one might ** laugh a siege to scorn.*' A 
hundred feet front and a hundred high is about the 
style, and you go up three flights of stairs before 
you begin to come upon signs of occupancy. 
Everything is stone, and stone of the heaviest — 
floors, stairways, mantels, benches — everything. 
The walls are four to five feet thick. The streets 
generally are four or five to eight feet wide and as 
crooked as a corkscrew. You go along one of these 
gloomy cracks, and look up and behold the sky like 
a mere ribbon of light, far above your head, where 
the tops of the tall houses on either side of the 
street bend almost together. You feel as if you 
were at the bottom of some tremendous abyss, with 
all the world far above you. You wind in and out 
and here and there, in the most mysterious way, 
and have no more idea of the points of the compass 
than if you were a blind man. You can never per- 
suade yourself that these are actually streets, and 
the frowning, dingy, monstrous houses dwellings, 
till you see one of these beautiful, prettily-dressed 
women emerge from them — see her emerge from a 
dark, dreary-looking den that looks dungeon all 
over, from the ground away half-way up to heaven 



220 The Innocents Abroad 

And then you wonder that such a charming moth 
30uld come from such a forbidding shell as that. 
The streets are wisely made narrow and the houses 
heavy and thick and £.tony, in order that the people 
may be cool in this roasting climate. And they are 
cool, and stay so. And while I think of it — the 
men wear hats and have very dark complexions, but 
the women wear no headgear but a flimsy veil like a 
gossamer's web, and yet are exceedingly fair as a 
general thing. Singular, isn't it? 

The huge palaces of Genoa are each supposed to 
be occupied by one family, but they could accom- 
modate a hundred, I should think. They are relics 
of the grandeur of Genoa's palmy days — the days 
when she was a great commercial and maritime 
power several centuries ago. These houses, solid 
marble palaces though they be, are, in many cases, 
of a dull pinkish color, outside, and from pavement 
to eaves are pictured with Genoese battle-scenes, 
with monstrous Jupiters and Cupids and with familiar 
illustrations from Grecian mythology. Where the 
paint has yielded to age and exposure and is peel- 
ing off in flakes and patches, the effect is not happy. 
A noseless Cupid, or a Jupiter with an eye out, or 
a Venus with a fly-blister on her breast, are not 
attractive features in a picture. Some of these 
painted walls reminded me somewhat of the tall van, 
plastered with fanciful bills and posters, that follows 
the band wagon of a circus about a country village. 
X have not read or heard that the outsides of the 



The Innocents Abroad 221 

houses of any other European city are frescoed in 
this way. 

I cannot conceive of such a thing as Genoa m 
ruins. Such massive arches, such ponderous sub- 
structions as support these towering broad-winged 
edifices, we have seldom seen before; and surely 
the great blocks of stone of which these edifices are 
built can never decay ; walls that are as thick as an 
ordinary American doorway is high, cannot crumble. 

The Republics of Genoa and Pisa were very 
powerful in the Middle Ages. Their ships filled 
the Mediterranean, and they carried on an extensive 
commerce with Constantinople and Syria. Their 
warehouses were the great distributing depots from 
whence the costly merchandise of the East was sent 
abroad over Europe. They were warlike little 
nations, and defied, in those days, governments 
that overshadow them now as mountains overshadow 
molehills. The Saracens captured and pillaged 
Genoa nine hundred years ago, but during the fol- 
lowing century Genoa and Pisa entered into an offen- 
sive and defensive alliance and besieged the Sara- 
cen colonies in Sardinia and the Balearic Isles with 
an obstinacy that maintained its pristine vigor and 
held to its purpose for forty long years. They were 
victorious at last, and divided their conquests 
equably among their great patrician families. De- 
scendants of some of those proud families still in- 
habit the palaces of Genoa, and trace in their own 
features a resemblance to the grim knights whose 

15 



222 The Innocents Abroad 

portraits hang in their stately halls, and to pictured 
beauties with pouting lips and merry eyes whose 
originals have been dust and ashes for many a dead 
and forgotten century. 

The hotel we live in belonged to one of those 
great orders of Knights of the Cross in the times of 
the Crusades, and its mailed sentinels once kept 
watch and ward in its massive turrets and woke the 
echoes of these halls and corridors with their iron 
heels. 

But Genoa's greatness has degenerated into an 
unostentatious commerce in velvets and silver filigree 
work. They say that each European town has its 
specialty. These filigree things are Genoa's spe- 
cialty. Her smiths take silver ingots and work them 
up into all manner of graceful and beautiful forms. 
They make bunches of flowers, from flakes and wires 
of silver, that counterfeit the delicate creations the 
frost weaves upon a window pane; and we were 
shown a miniature silver temple whose fluted col- 
umns, whose Corinthian capitals and rich entabla- 
tures, whose spire, statues, bells, and ornate lavish- 
ness of sculpture were wrought in polished silver, 
and with such matchless art that every detail was a 
fascinating study, and the finished edifice a wonder 
of beauty. 

We are ready to move again, though we are not 
really tired, yet, of the narrow passages of this old 
marble cave. Cave is a good word — when speak- 
ing of Genoa under the stars. When we have been 



The innocents Abroad 223 

prowling at midnight through the gloomy crevices 
they call streets, where no footfalls but ours were 
echoing, where only ourselves were abroad, and 
lights appeared only at long intervals and at a dis- 
tance, and mysteriously disappeared again, and the 
houses at our elbows seemed to stretch upward 
farther than ever toward the heavens, the memory 
of a cave I used to know at home was always in my 
mind, with its lofty passages, its silence and solitude, 
its shrouding gloom, its sepulchral echoes, its flitting 
lights, and more than all, its sudden revelations of 
branching crevices and corridors where we least ex- 
pected them. 

We are not tired of the endless processions of 
cheerful, chattering gossipers that throng these 
courts and streets all day long, either; nor of the 
coarse-robed monks; nor of the **Asti" wines, 
which that old doctor (whom we call the Oracle^^ 
with customary felicity in the matter of getting 
everything wrong, misterms **nastyo'* But we 
must go, nevertheless. 

Our last sight was the cemetery (a burial place 
intended to accommodate 60,000 bodies), and we 
shall continue to remember it after we shall have 
forgotten the palaces. It is a vast marble colonnaded 
corridor extending around a great unoccupied square 
of ground ; its broad floor is marble, and on every 
slab is an inscription — for every slab covers a 
corpse. On either side, as one walks down the 
middle of the passage, are monuments, tombs, and 



224 The Innocents Abroad 

sculptured figures that are exquisitely wrought and 
are full of grace and beauty. They are new and 
snowy ; every outline is perfect, every feature guilt- 
less of mutilation, flaw, or blemish; and, therefore, 
to us these far-reaching ranks of bewitching forms 
are a hundredfold more lovely than the damaged 
and dingy statuary they have saved from the wreck 
of ancient art and set up in the galleries of Paris for 
the worship of the world. 

Well provided with cigars and other necessaries of 
life, we are now ready to take the cars for Milan. 



CHAPTER XVIIL 

ALL day long we sped through a mountainous 
country whose peaks were bright with sun- 
shine, whose hillsides were dotted with pretty villas 
sitting in the midst of gardens and shrubbery, and 
whose deep ravines were cool and shady, and looked 
ever so inviting from where we and the birds were 
winging our flight through the sultry upper air„ 

We had plenty of chilly tunnels wherein to 
check our perspiration, though. We timed one of 
them. We were twenty minutes passing through 
it, going at the rate of thirty to thirty-five miles 
an hour. 

Beyond Alessandria we passed the battlefield of 
Marengo. 

Toward dusk we drew near Milan, and caught 
glimpses of the city and the blue mountain-peaks 
beyond. But we were not caring for these things--^ 
they did not interest us in the least. We were in a 
fever of impatience ; we were dying to see the re- 
nowned cathedral ! We watched — in this direction 
and that — all around — everywhere. We needed no 
one to point it out — we did not wish any one to 
15» (225) 



226 The innocents Abroad 

point it out — we would recognize it, even in the 
desert of the great Sahara, 

At last, a forest of graceful needles, shimmering 
in the amber sunlight, rose slowly above the pigmy 
housetops, as one sometimes sees, in the far hori- 
zon, a gilded and pinnacled mass of cloud lift itself 
above the waste of waves, at sea, — ■ the cathedral I 
We knew it in a moment. 

Half of that night, and all of the next day, this 
architectural autocrat was our sole object of interest. 

What a wonder it is ! So grand, so solemn, so 
vast ! And yet so delicate, so airy, so graceful ! A 
very world of solid weight, and yet it seems in the 
soft m.oonlight only a fairy delusion of frostwork 
that might vanish with a breath ! How sharply its 
pinnacled angles and its wilderness of spires were cut 
against the sky, and how richly their shadows fell upon 
its snowy roof ! It was a vision ! — a miracle ! — an 
anthem sung in stone, a poem wrought in marble ! \ 

Howsoever you look at the great cathedral, it is 
noble, it is beautiful ! Wherever you stand in 
Milan, or within seven miles of Milan, it is visible — 
and when it is visible, no other object can chain 
your whole attention. Leave your eyes unfettered 
by your will but a single instant and they will surely 
turn to seek it. It is the first thing you look for 
when you rise in the morning, and the last your 
lingering gaze rests upon at night. Surely, it must 
be the princeliest creation that ever brain of man 
conceived* 



The Innocents Abroad 227 

At nine o'clock in the morning we went and stood 
before this marble colossus. The central one of its 
five great doors is bordered with a bas-relief of birds 
and fruits and beasts and insects, which have been 
so ingeniously carved out of the marble that they 
seem like living creatures — and the figures are so 
numerous and the design so complex, that one 
might study it a week without exhausting its 
interest. On the great steeple — surmounting the 
myriad of spires — inside of the spires — over the 
doors, the windows — in nooks and corners — every- 
where that a niche or a perch can be found about the 
enormous building, from summit to base, there is a 
marble statue, and every statue is a study in itself! 
Raphael, Angelo, Canova — giants like these gave 
birth to the designs, and their own pupils carved 
them. Every face is eloquent with expression, and 
every attitude is full of grace. Away above, on 
the lofty roof, rank on rank of carved and fretted 
spires spring high in the air, and through their rich 
tracery one sees the sky beyond. In their midst the 
central steeple towers proudly up like the mainmast 
of some great Indiaman among a fleet of coasters. 

We wished to go aloft. The sacristan showed us 
a marble stairway (of course it was marble, and of 
the purest and whitest — there is no other stone, no 
brick, no wood, among its building materials), and 
told us to go up one hundred and eighty-two steps 
and stop till he came. It was not necessary to say 
stop — we should have done that anyhow- We 



228 The Innocents Abroad 

were tired by the time we got there. This was the 
roof. Here, springing from its broad marble flag- 
stones, were the long files of spires, looking very 
tall close at hand, but diminishing in the distance 
like the pipes of an organ. We could see, now, that 
the statue on the top of each was the size of a large 
man, though they all looked like dolls from the 
street. We could see, also, that from the inside of 
each and every one of these hollow spires, from 
sixteen to thirty-one beautiful marble statues looked 
out upon the world below. 

From the eaves to the comb of the roof stretched 
in endless succession great curved marble beams, 
like the fore-and-aft braces of a steamboat, and 
along each beam from end to end stood up a row of 
richly carved flowers and fruits — each separate and 
distinct in kind, and over 15,000 species repre- 
sented. At a little distance these rows seem to 
close together like the ties of a railroad track, and 
then the mingling together of the buds and blossoms 
of this marble garden forms a picture that is very 
charming to the eye. 

We descended and entered. Within the church, 
long rows of fluted columns, like huge monuments, 
divided the building into broad aisles, and on the 
figured pavement fell many a soft blush from the 
painted windows above. I knew the church was 
very large, but I could not fully appreciate its great 
size until I noticed that the men standing far down 
by the altar looked like boys, and seem.ed to glide, 



The innocents Abroad 229 

rather than walk. We loitered about gazing aloft at 
the monster windows all aglow with brilliantly 
colored scenes in the lives of the Saviour and his 
followers. Some of these pictures are mosaics, and 
so artistically are their thousand particles of tinted 
glass or stone put together that the work has all the 
smoothness and finish of a painting. We counted 
sixty panes of glass in one window, and each pane 
was adorned with one of these master achievements 
of genius and patience. 

The guide showed us a coffee-colored piece of 
sculpture which he said was considered to have come 
from the hand of Phidias, since it was not possible 
that any other artist, of any epoch, could have 
copied nature with such faultless accuracy. The 
figure was that of a man without a skin ; with every 
vein, artery, muscle, every fibre and tendon and 
tissue of the human frame, represented in minute 
detail. It looked natural, because somehow it looked 
as if it were in pain. A skinned man would be likely 
to look that way, unless his attention were occupied 
with some other matter. It was a hideous thing, 
and yet there was a fascination about it somewhere. 
I am very sorry I saw it, because I shall always see 
it, now. I shall dream of it, sometimes. I shal5 
dream that it is resting its corded arms on the bed's 
head and looking down on me with its dead eyes ; I 
shall dream that it is stretched between the sheets 
with me and touching me with its exposed muscles 
and its stringy cold legs. 



230 The Innocents Abroad 

It IS hard to forget repulsive things, I remembei 
yet how I ran off from school once, when I was a 
boy, and then, pretty late at night, concluded to 
climb into the window of my father's ofhce and 
sleep on a lounge, because I had a delicacy about 
going home and getting thrashed. As I lay on the 
lounge and my eyes grew accustomed to the dark- 
ness, I fancied I could see a long, dusky, shapeless 
thing stretched upon the floor. A cold shiver went 
through mce I turned my face to the wall. That 
did not answer. I was afraid that that thing would 
creep over and seize me in the dark. I turned back 
and stared at it for minutes and minutes — they 
seemed hours. It appeared to me that the lagging 
moonlight never, never would get to it. I turned to 
the wall and counted twenty, to pass the feverish 
time away. I looked — the pale square was nearer, 
I turned again and counted fifty — it was almost 
touching it. With desperate will I turned again and 
counted one hundred, and faced about, all in a 
tremble. A white human hand lay in the moon- 
light! Such an awful sinking at the heart — such a 
sudden gasp for breath ! I felt — I cannot tell what 
I felt. When I recovered strength enough, I faced 
the wall again. But no boy could have remained 
so, with that mysterious hand behind him. I 
counted again, and looked — the most of a naked 
arm was exposed, I put my hands over my eyes 
and counted till I could stand it no longer, and then 
— the pallid face of a man was there, with the 




The innocents Abroad 23 1 

corners of the mouth drawn down, and the eyes 
fixed and glassy in death ! I raised to a sitting 
posture and glowered on that corpse till the light 
crept down the bare breast, — line by line — inch by 
inch — past the nipple, — and then it disclosed a 
ghastly stab ! 

I went away from there. I do not say that I went 
away in any sort of a hurry, but I simply went^ — 
that is sufficient. I went out at the window, and I 
carried the sash along with me. I did not need the 
sash, but it was handier to take it than it was to 
leave it, and so I took it. I was not scared, but I 
was considerably agitated. 

When I reached home, they whipped me, but I 
enjoyed it. It seemed perfectly delightful. That 
man had been stabbed near the office that afternoon, 
and they carried him in there to doctor him, but he 
only lived an hour. I have slept in the same rocm 
with him often, since then — in my dreams. 

Now we will descend into the crypt, under the 
grand altar of Milan cathedral, and receive an im- 
pressive sermon from lips that have been silent and 
hands that have been gestureless for three hundred 
years. 

The priest stopped in a small dungeon and held 
up his candle. This was the last resting-place of a 
good man, a warm-hearted, unselfish man; a man 
whose whole life was given to succoring the poor, 
encouraging the faint-hearted, visiting the sick; in 
relieving distress, whenever and wherever he found 



232 The Innocents Abroad 

it. His heart, his hand, and his purse were always 
open. With his story in one's mind he can ahnost 
see his benignant countenance moving calmly among 
the haggard faces of Milan in the days when the 
plague swept the city, brave where all others were 
cowards, full of compassion where pity had been 
crushed out of all other breasts by the instinct of 
self-preservation gone mad with terror, cheering all, 
praying with all, helping all, with hand and braiu 
and purse, at a time when parents forsook their 
children, the friend deserted the friend, and the 
brother turned away from the sister while her plead- 
ings were still wailing in his ears. 

This was good St. Charles Borromeo, Bishop of 
Milan. The people idolized him; princes lavished 
uncounted treasures upon him. We stood in his 
tomb. Near by was the sarcophagus, lighted by the 
dripping candles. The walls were faced with bas- 
reliefs representing scenes in his life done in massive 
silver. The priest put on a short white lace garment 
over his black robe, crossed himself, bowed rever- 
ently, and began to turn a windlass slowly. The 
sarcophagus separated in two parts, lengthwise, and 
the lower part sank down and disclosed a coffin of 
rock crystal as clear as the atmosphere. Within lay 
the body, robed in costly habiliments covered with 
gold embroidery and starred with scintillating gems. 
The decaying head was black with age, the dry skin 
was drawn tight to the bones, the eyes were gone, 
«iiere was a hole in the temple and another in the 



The Innocents Abroad 23J 

cheek, and the skinny lips were parted as in a ghastly 
smile ! Over this dreadful face, its dust and decays, 
and its mocking grin, hung a crown sown thick with 
flashing brilliants ; and upon the breast lay crosses 
and croziers of solid gold that were splendid with 
emeralds and diamonds. 

How poor, and cheap, and trivial these gewgaws 
seemed in presence of the solemnity, the grandeur; 
the awful majesty of Death ! Think of Milton, 
Shakespeare, Washington, standing before a reverent 
world tricked out in the glass beads, the brass ear- 
rings, and tin trumpery of the savages of the plains 8 

Dead Borromeo preached his pregnant sermon, 
and its burden was: You that worship the vanities 
of earth — you that long for worldly honor, worldly 
wealth, worldly fame — behold their worth! 

To us it seemed that so good a man, so kind a 
heart, so simple a nature, deserved rest and peace in 
a grave sacred from the intrusion of prying eyes, 
and believed that he himself would have preferred 
to have it so, but perad venture our wisdom was at 
fault in this regard. 

As we came out upon the floor of the church 
again, another priest volunteered to show us the 
treasures of the church. What, more? The furni- 
ture of the narrow chamber of death we had just 
visited, weighed six millions of francs in ounces and 
carats alone, without a penny thrown into the ac- 
count for the costly workmanship bestowed upon 
them ! But we foUpwed into a large room filled 



234 The Innocents Abroad 

with tall wooden presses like wardrobes- He threw 
them open, and behold, the cargoes of ** crude 
bullion " of the assay offices of Nevada faded out of 
my memory. There were Virgins and bishops there, 
above their natural size, made of solid silver, each 
worth, by weight, from eight hundred thousand to 
two millions of francs, and bearing gemmed books 
in their hands worth eighty thousand ; there were 
bas-reliefs that weighed six hundred oounds, carved 
in solid silver; croziers and crosses, and candlesticks 
six and eight feet high, all of virgin gold, and 
brilliant with precious stones^; and beside these were 
all manner of cups and vases, and such things, rich 
m proportion. It was an Aladdin's palace. The 
treasures here, by simple weight, without counting 
workmanship, were valued at fifty millions of francs 1 
If I could get the custody of them for a while, I fear 
me the market price of silver bishops would advance 
shortly, on account of their exceeding scarcity in 
the Cathedral of Milano 

The priests showed us two of Ste Paul's fingers, 
and one of St. Peter's; a bone of Judas Iscariot (it 
was black) , and also bones of all the other disciples ; 
a handkerchief in which the Saviour had left the 
impression of his face. Among the most precious 
of the relics were, a stone from the Holy Sepulchre, 
part of the crown of thorns (they have a whole one 
at Notre Dame), a fragment of the purple robe 
worn by the Saviour, a nail from the Cross, and a 
picture of the Virgin and Child painted by the 



The Innocents ADroad 235 

veritable hand of St. Luke, This is the second of 
St. Luke*s Virgins we have seen. Once a year all 
these holy relics are carried in procession through 
the streets of Milan, 

T like to revel in the dryest details of the great 
cathedral. The building is five hundred feet long 
by one hundred and eighty wide, and the principal 
steeple is in the neighborhood of four hundred feet 
high. It has 7,148 marble statues, and will have 
upward of three thousand more when it is finished 
in addition, it has one thousand five hundred bas- 
reliefs. It has one hundred and thirty-six spires — ^ 
twenty-one more are to be added. Each spire is 
surmounted by a statue six and a half feet high. 
Everything about the church is marble, and all from 
the same quarry; it was bequeathed to the Arch- 
bishopric for this purpose centuries ago. So noth- 
ing but the mere workmanship costs; still that is 
expensive — the bill foots up six hundred and 
eighty-four millions of francs, thus far (considerably 
over a hundred millions of dollars), and it is esti- 
mated that it will take a hundred and twenty years 
yet to finish the cathedral. It looks complete, but 
is far from being so. We saw a new statue put in 
its niche yesterday, alongside of one which had been 
standing these four hundred years, they said. There 
are four staircases leading up to the main steeple, 
each of which cost a hundred thousand dollars, with 
the four hundred and eight statues which adorn 
them. Marcoda Campione was the architect who de- 



236 The Innocents Abroad 

signed the wonderful structure more than five hun« 
dred years ago, and it took him forty-six years to 
work out the plan and get it ready to hand over to 
the builders. He is dead now. The building was 
begun a little less than five hundred years ago, and 
the third generation hence will not see it completed. 

The building looks best by moonlight, because 
the older portions of it being stained with age, con- 
trast unpleasantly with the newer and whiter por- 
tions. It seems somewhat too broad for its height, 
but may be familiarity with it might dissipate this 
impression. 

They say that the Cathedral of Milan is second 
only to St. Peter's at Rome. I cannot understand 
how it can be second to anything made by human 
hands. 

We bid it good-bye now — possibly for all time. 
How surely, in some future day, when the memory 
of it shall have lost its vividness, shall we halt 
believe we have seen it in a wonderful dream, but 
never with waking eyes ! 



CHAPTER XIX. 

a r\0 you wis zo haut can be?** 

L^ That was what the guide asked, when we 
were looking up at the bronze horses on the Arch 
of Peace. It meant, Do you wish to go up there? 
I give it as a specimen of guide-English. These are 
the people that make life a burthen to the tourist, 
Their tongues are never still. They talk forever and 
forever, and that is the kind of billingsgate they usCc 
Inspiration itself could hardly comprehend them, If 
they would only show you a masterpiece of art, or a 
venerable tomb, or a prison-house, or a battlefield, 
hallowed by touching memories, or historical remini- 
scences, or grand traditions, and then step aside and 
hold still for ten minutes and let you think, it would 
not be so bad. But they interrupt every dream, 
every pleasant train of thought, with their tiresome 
cackling. Sometimes when I have been standing 
before some cherished old idol of mine that I re- 
membered years and years ago in pictures in the 
geography at school, I have thought I would give a 
whole world if the human parrot at my side would 
«^ ,<2.37'/ 



238 The Innocents Abroad 

suddenly perish where he stood and leave me to 
gaze, and ponder, and worship. 

No, we did not **wis zo haut can be.** We 
wished to go to La Scala, the largest theater in the 
world, I think they call it., We did so. It was a 
large place. Seven separate and distinct masses of 
humanity — six great circles and a monster par- 
quettCc 

We wished to go to the Ambrosian Library, and 
we did that also. We saw a manuscript of Virgil, 
with annotations in the handwriting of Petrarch, the 
gentleman who loved another man's Laura, and 
lavished upon her all through life a love which was a 
clear waste of the raw material. It was sound senti- 
ment, but bad judgment. It brought both parties 
fame, and created a fountain of coDfimiseratlon for 
them in sentimental breasts that is running yet. But 
who says a word in behalf of poor Mr. Laura? (I 
do not know his other name.) Who glorifies him? 
Who bedews him with tears? Who writes poetry 
about him? Nobody, How do you suppose he 
liked the state of things that has given the world so 
much pleasure? How did he enjoy having another 
man following his wife everywhere and making her 
name a familiar word in every garlic-exterminating 
mouth in Italy with his sonnets to her pre-empted 
eyebrows? They got fame and sympathy — he got 
neither. This is a peculiarly felicitous instance of 
what is called poetical justice. It is all very fine; 
but it does not chime with my notions of right. It 



The Innocents Abroad 239 

is too one-sided — too ungenerous. Let the world 
go on fretting about Laura and Petrarch if it will ; 
but as for me, my tears and my lamentations shall 
be lavished upon the unsung defendant. 

We saw also an autograph letter of Lucrezia 
Borgia, a lady for whom I have always entertained 
the highest respect, on account of her rare histrionic 
capabilities, her opulence in soHd gold goblets made 
of gilded wood, her high distinction as an operatic 
screamer, and the facility with which she could order 
a sextuple funeral and get the corpses ready for it. 
We saw one single coarse yellow hair from Lucre- 
zia's head, likewise. It awoke emotions, but we 
still live. In this same library we saw some drawings 
by Michael Angelo (these Italians call him MickeJ 
Angelo), and Leonardo da Vinci. (They spell it 
Vinci and pronounce it Vinchy; foreigners always 
spell better than they pronounce.) We reserve our 
opinion of these sketches. 

In another building they showed us a fresco 
representing some lions and other beasts drawing 
chariots; and they seemed to project so far from 
the wall that we took them to be sculptures. The 
artist had shrewdly heightened the delusion by paint- 
ing dust on the creatures' backs, as if it had fallen 
theie naturally and properly. Smart fellow—if it 
be smart to deceive strangers. 

Elsewhere we saw a huge Roman amphitheater^ 
with its stone seats still in good preservation. 
Modernized^ it is now the scene of more peaceful! 



240 The Innocents Aoroad 

recreations than the exhibition of a party of wild 
beasts with Christians for dinner. Part of the time, 
the Milanese use it for a race track, and at other 
seasons they flood it with water and have spirited 
yachting regattas there. The guide told us these 
things, and he would hardly try so hazardous an 
experiment as the telling of a falsehood, when it is 
all he can do to speak the truth in English without 
getting the lockjaw. 

In another place we were shown a sort of summer 
arbor, with a fence before it. We said that was 
nothing. We looked again, and saw, through the 
arbor, an endless stretch of garden, and shrubbery, 
and grassy lawn. We were perfectly willing to go 
in there and rest, but it could not be done. It was 
only another delusion — a painting by some ingenious 
artist with little charity in his heart for tired folk. 
The deception was perfect. No one could have 
imagined the park was not real. We even thought 
we smelled the flowers at first. 

We got a carriage at twilight and drove in the 
shaded avenues with the other nobility, and after 
dinner we took wine and ices in a fine garden with 
the great public. The music was excellent, the 
flowers and shrubbery were pleasant to the eye, the 
scene was vivacious, everybody was genteel and well- 
behaved, and the ladies were slightly moustached, and 
handsomely dressed, but very homely. 

We adjourned to a cafd and played billiards an 
hour, and I made six or seven points by the 



Ihe Innocents Abroad 241 

doctor pocketing his ball, and he made as many by 
my pocketing my ball. We came near making a 
carom sometimes, but not the one we were trying to 
make. The table was of the usual European style — 
cushions dead and twice as high as the balls; the 
cues in bad repair. The natives play only a sort of 
pool on them. We have never seen anybody play 
ing the French three-ball game yet, and 1 doubt if 
there is any such game known in France, or that- 
there lives any man mad enough to try to play it on 
one of these European tables. We had to stop 
playing, finally, because Dan got to sleeping fifteen 
minutes between the counts and paying no attention 
to his marking. 

Afterward we walked up and down one of the 
most popular streets for some time, enjoying other 
people's comfort and wishing we could export some 
of it to our restless, driving, vitality-consuming 
marts at home. Just in this one matter lies the 
main charm of life in Europe — comfort. In 
America, we hurry — which is well; but when the 
day's work is done, we go on thinking of losses and 
gains, we plan for the morrow, we even carry our 
business cares to bed with us, and toss and worry 
over them when we ought to be restoring our racked 
bodies and brains with sleep. We burn up our 
energies with these excitements, and either die early 
or drop into a lean and mean old age at a time of 
life which they call a man's prime in Europe. 
When an acre of ground has produced long and 
16» 



242 The Innocents Abroad 

well, we let it lie fallow and rest for a season ; we 
take no man clear across the continent in the same 
coach he started in — the coach is stabled some- 
where on the plains and its heated machinery allowed 
to cool for a few days ; when a razor has seen long 
service and refuses to hold an edge, the barber lays 
it away for a few weeks, and the edge comes back 
of its own accord. We bestow thoughtful care upon 
inanimate objects, but none upon ourselves. What 
a robust people, what a nation of thinkers we might 
be, if we would only lay ourselves on the shelf occa- 
sionally and renew our edges ! 

I do envy these Europeans the comfort they take. 
When the work of the day is done, they forget it. 
Some of them go, with wife and children, to a beer 
hall, and sit quietly and genteelly drinking a mug or 
two of ale and listening to music ; others walk the 
streets, others drive in the avenues ; others assemble 
m the great ornamental squares in the early evening 
to enjoy the sight and the fragrance of flowers and 
to hear the military bands play — no European city 
being without its fine military music at eventide; 
and yet others of the populace sit in the open air in 
front of the refreshment houses and eat ices and 
drink mild beverages that could not harm a child. 
They go to bed moderately early, and sleep well. 
They are always quiet, always orderly, always cheer- 
ful, comfortable, and appreciative of life and its 
manifold blessings. One never sees a drunken man 
among them. The change that has come over oui 



The Innocents Abroad 24) 

little party is surprising. Day by day we lose some 
of our restlessness and absorb some of the spirit of 
quietude and ease that is in the tranquil atmosphere 
about us and in the demeanor of the people. We 
grow wise apace. We begin to comprehend what 
life is for. 

We have had a bath in Milan, in a public bath* 
house. They were going to put all three of us in 
one bathtub, but we objected. Each of us had aft 
Italian farm, on his back. We could have felt 
affluent if we had been officially surveyed and fenced 
in. We chose to have three bathtubs, and large 
ones — tubs suited to the dignity of aristocrats who 
had real estate, and brought it with them. After 
we were stripped and had taken the first chilly 
dash, we discovered that haunting atrocity that has 
embittered our lives in so many cities and villages of 
Italy and France — there was no soap. I called. 
A woman answered, and I barely had time to throw 
myself against the door — she would have been in, 
in another second. I said: 

* * Beware, woman ! Go away from here — go 
away, now, or it will be the worse for you. I am 
an unprotected male, but I will preserve my honor 
at the peril of my life !*' 

These words must have frightened her, for she 
skurried away very fast. 

Dan's voice rose on the air: 

** Oh, bring some soap, why don't you!" 

The reply was Italian. Dan resumed : 



^44 The Ktinocetits Abroad 

** Soap, you know — soap. That is what I want 
— soap. S-o-a-p, soap; s-o-p-e, soap; s-o-u-p, 
soap. Hurry up ! I don't know how you Irish 
spell it, but I want it. Spell it to suit yourself, but 
fetch it. Tm freezing.'* 

I heard the doctor say, impressively : 

** Dan, how often have we told you that these 
foreigners cannot understand English? Why will 
you not depend upon us? Why will you not tell us 
what you want, and let us ask for it in the language 
of the country? It would save us a great deal of 
the humiliation your reprehensible ignorance causes 
us, I will address this person in his mother tongue : 
* Here, cospetto ! corpo di Bacco ! Sacramento ! 
Solferino ! — Soap, you son of a gun!* Dan, if 
you would let us talk for you, you would never 
expose your ignorant vulgarity.'* 

Even this fluent discharge of Italian did not bring 
the soap at once, but there was a good reason for it. 
There was not such an article about the establish- 
ment. It is my belief that there never had been. 
They had to send far up town, and to several 
different places before they finally got it, so they 
said. We had to wait twenty or thirty minutes. 
The same thing had occurred the evening before, at 
the hotel. I think I have divined the reason for this 
state of things at last. The English know how to 
travel comfortably, and they carry soap with them ; 
other foreigners do not use the article. 

At every hotel we stop at we always have to send 



The innocents Abroad 24S 

out for soap, at the last moment, when we are 
grooming ourselves for dinner, and they put it in the 
bill along with the candles and other nonsense. In 
Marseilles they make half the fancy toilet soap we 
consume in America, but the Marseillaise only have 
a vague theoretical idea of its use, which they have 
obtained from books of travel, just as they have ac- 
quired an uncertain notion of clean shirts, and the 
peculiarities of the gorilla, and other curious matters, 
This reminds me of poor Blucher's note to the land- 
lord in Paris: 

« Paris, le 7 Juillet. 
*^ Monsieur h Landlord — Sir: Pourquoi don't you mettez some 
savon in your bedchambers? Est-ce que •votis pensez I will steal it? 
La nuit passee you charged me pour deux chandelles when I only had 
one; hier vous avez charged me avec glace when I had none at all; toui 
les jours you are coming some fresh game or other on me, mais vous ne 
pouvez pas play this savon dodge on me twice. Savon is a necessary 
de la vie to anybody but a Frenchman, et je Vaurai hors de cet hStelot 
make trouble- You hear me, Allons, Blucher." 

I remonstrated against the sending of this note^ 
because it was so mixed up that the landlord would 
never be able to make head or tall of it; but 
Blucher said he guessed the old man could read the 
French of it and average the rest. 

Blucher' s French is bad enough, but it is not 
much worse than the English one finds in advertise- 
ments all over Italy every day. For instance, ob- 
serve the printed card of the hotel we shall probabl)/ 
stop at on the shores of Lake Como : 



146 The Innocents Abroad 

"NOTISH." 
**This hotel which the best it is in Italy and most 
superb, is handsome locate on the best situation of the 
lake, with the most splendid view near the Villas Melzy, 
to the King of Belgian, and Serbelloni. This hotel have 
recently enlarge, do offer all commodities on moderate 
price, at the strangers gentlemen who whish spend the 
seasons on the Lake O^me.'* 

How is that for a specimen? In the hotel is a 
handsome little chapel where an English clergyman 
is employed to preach to such of the guests of the 
house as hail from England and America, and this 
fact is also set forth in barbarous English in the 
same advertisement. Wouldn't you have supposed 
that the adventurous linguist who framed the card 
would have known enough to submit it to that clergy- 
man before he sent it to the printer? 

Here, in Milan, in an ancient tumble-down ruin of 
a church, is the mournful wreck of the most cele- 
brated painting in the world — *' The Last Supper," 
by Leonardo da Vinci, We are not infallible judges 
of pictures, but, of course, we went there to see this 
wonderful painting, once so beautiful, always so 
worshiped by masters in art, and forever to be 
famous in song and story. And the first thing that 
occurred was the infliction on us of a placard fairly 
reeking with wretched English. Take a morsel of it: 

•* Bartholomew (that is the first figure on the left hand side at the 
spectator), uncertain and doubtful about what he thinks to have heard, 
and upon which he wants to be assured by himself at Christ and by no 
others." 



The Innocents Abroad 247 

Good, isn't it? And then Peter is described as 
'* argumenting in a threatening and angrily condition 
at Judas Iscariot." 

This paragraph recalls the picture. '*The Last 
Supper ' ' is painted on the dilapidated wall of what 
was a little chapel attached to the main church in 
ancient times, I suppose. It is battered and scarred 
in every direction, and stained and discolored by 
time, and Napoleon's horses kicked the legs off most 
the disciples when they (the horses, not the disciples) 
were stabled there more than half a century ago. 

I recognized the old picture in a moment — the 
Saviour with bowed head seated at the center of a 
long, rough table with scattering fruits and dishes 
upon it, and six disciples on either side in their long 
robes, talking to each other — the picture from 
which all engravings and all copies have been made 
for three centuries. Perhaps no living man has 
ever known an attempt to paint the Lord's Supper 
differently. The world seems to have become set- 
tled in the belief, long ago, that it is not possible for 
human genius to outdo this creation of Da Vinci's. 
I suppose painters will go on copying it as long as any 
of the original is left visible to the eye. There were a 
dozen easels in the room, and as many artists trans- 
ferring the great picture to their canvases. Fifty 
proofs of steel engravings and lithographs were 
scattered around, too. And as usual, I could not 
help noticing how superior the copies were to the 
original, that is, to my inexperienced eye. Where* 



M8 the Innocents Abroiid 

ever you find a Raphael, a Rubens, a Michael 
Angelo, a Caracci, or a Da Vinci (and we see them 
every day) you find artists copying them, and the 
copies are always the handsomest. Maybe the 
originals were handsome when they were new, but 
they are not now. 

This picture is about thirty feet long, and ten or 
twelve high, I should think, and the figures are at 
least life size. It is one of the largest paintings in 
Europe. 

The colors are dimmed with age ; the countenances 
are scaled and marre^, and nearly all expression is 
gone from them ; the hair is a dead blur upon the 
wall, and there is no life in the eyes. Only the 
attitudes are certain. 

People come here from all parts of the world, and 
glorify this masterpiece. They stand entranced be- 
fore it with bated breath and parted lips, and when 
they speak, it is only in the catchy ejaculations of 
rapture: 

**0h, wonderful!" 

** Such expression !" 

'* Such grace of attitude!" 

**Such dignity!" 

■* Such faultless drawing!" 

"* Such matchless coloring!" 

"Such feeling!" 

*' What deHcacy of touch !" 

** What sublimity of conception!*' 

•* A vision ! a vision 1* ' 



The Innocents Abroad 249 

I only envy these people; I envy them their 
honest admiration, if it be honest — their delight, if 
they feel delight. I harbor no animosity toward 
any of them. But at the same time the thought 
wi/l intrude itself upon me, How can they see what 
is not visible? What would you think of a man 
who looked at some decayed, blind, toothless, pock- 
marked Cleopatra, and said: **What matchless 
beauty ! What soul ! What expression 1 ' * What 
would you think of a man who gazed upon a dingy, 
foggy sunset, and said: *'What sublimity! what 
feeling ! what richness of coloring ! ' * What would 
you think of a man who stared in ecstasy upon a 
desert of stumps and said: ** Oh, my soul, my beat- 
ing heart, what a noble forest is here ! ' * 

You would think that those men had an astonish- 
ing talent for seeing things that had already passed 
away. It was what I thought when I stood before 
the Last Supper and heard men apostrophizing 
wonders and beauties and perfections which had 
faded out of the picture and gone, a hundred years 
before they were born. We can imagine the beauty 
that was once in an aged face ; we can imagine the 
forest if we see the stumps; but we cannot abso- 
lutely see these things when they are not there, ) 
am willing to believe that the eye of the practiced 
artist can rest upon the Last Supper and renew a 
lustre where only a hint of it is left, supply a tint 
that has faded away, restore an expression that is 
gone; patch, and color, and add to the dull canvas 



250 The Innocents Abroad 

until at last its figures shall stand before him aglow 
with the life, the feeling, the freshness, yea, with all 
the noble beauty that was theirs when first they 
came from the hand of the master. But / cannot 
work this miracle. Can those other uninspired 
visitors do it, or do they only happily imagine they 
do? 

After reading so much about it, I am satisfied that 
the Last Supper was a very miracle of art once. But 
it was three hundred years ago. 

It vexes me to hear people talk so glibly of ** feel- 
ing,*' ** expression," **tone/* and those other 
easily-acquired and inexpensive technicalities of art 
that make such a fine show in conversations concern- 
ing pictures. There is not one man in seventy-five 
hundred that can tell what a pictured face is intended 
to express. There is not one man in five hundred 
that can go into a court-room and be sure that he 
will not mistake some harmless innocent of a jury- 
man for the black-hearted assassin on trial. Yet 
such people talk of ^'character** and presume to 
interpret ** expression '* in pictures. There is an 
old story that Matthews, the actor, was once lauding 
the ability of the human face to express the passions 
and emotions hidden in the breast. He said the 
countenance could disclose what was passing in the 
heart plainer than the tongue could. 

** Now,*' he said, ** observe my face — what does 
it express?" 

** Despair!" 



The Innocents Abroad 251 

'*Bah, it expresses peaceful resignation! What 
does this express?" 

"Rage!" 

'* Stuff! it means terror ! This T 

** Imbecility!" 

**Fool! It is smothered ferocity! '^o^ this T* 

"Joy!" 

** Oh, perdition! Any 2iS,s can see it means in- 
sanity ! ' * 

Expression ! People coolly pretend to read it 
who would think themselves presumptuous if they 
pretended to interpret the hieroglyphics on the 
obelisk of Luxor — yet they are fully as competent 
to do the one thing as the other. I have heard two 
very intelligent critics speak of Murillo's Immacu- 
late Conception (now in the museum at Seville) 
within the past few days. One said : 

** Oh, the Virgin's face is full of the ecstasy of a 
joy that is complete — that leaves nothing more to 
be desired on earth!" 

The other said : 

** Ah, that wonderful face is so humble, so plead- 
ing — it says as plainly as words could say it; *I 
fear ; I tremble ; I am unworthy. But Thy will be 
done; sustain Thou Thy servant!'" 

The reader can see the picture in any drawing- 
room ; it can be easily recognized ; the Virgin (the 
only young and really beautiful Virgin that was ever 
painted by one of the old masters, some of us think) 
stands in the crescent of the new moon, with a 



252 The Innocents Abroad 

multitude of cherubs hovering about her, and more 
coming; her hands are crossed upon her breast, and 
upon her uplifted countenance falls a glory out of 
the heavens. The reader may amuse himself, if he 
chooses, in trying to determine which of these 
gentlemen read the Virgin's ** expression '* aright, 
or if either of them did it. 

Any one who is acquainted with the old masters 
will comprehend how much the Last Supper is 
damaged when I say that the spectator cannot really 
tell, now, whether the disciples are Hebrews or 
Italians. These ancient painters never succeeded in 
denationalizing themselves. The Italian artists 
painted Italian Virgins, the Dutch painted Dutch 
Virgins, the Virgins of the French painters were 
Frenchwomen — none of them ever put into the face 
of the Madonna that indescribable something which 
proclaims the Jewess, whether you find her in New 
York, in Constantinople, in Paris, Jerusalem, or in 
the Empire of Morocco. I saw in the Sandwich 
Islands, once, a picture, copied by a talented Ger- 
man artist from an engraving in one of the American 
illustrated papers. It was an allegory, representing 
Mr. Davis in the act of signing a secession act or 
some such document. Over him hovered the ghost 
of Washington in warning attitude, and in the back- 
ground a troop of shadowy soldiers in Continental 
uniform were limping with shoeless, bandaged feet 
through a driving snowstorm. Valley Forge was 
suggested of rourse. The copy seemed accurate, 



The innocents Abroad 253 

and yet there was a discrepancy somewhere. After 
a long examination I discovered what it was — the 
shadowy soldiers were all Germans ! Jeff. Davis was 
a German ! even the hovering ghost was a German 
ghost! The artist had unconsciously worked his 
nationality into the picture. To tell the truth, I 
am getting a little perplexed about John the Baptist 
and his portraits. In France I finally grew recon- 
ciled to him as a Frenchman ; here he is unquestion- 
ably an Italian. What next? Can it be possible 
that the painters make John the Baptist a Spaniard 
in Madrid and an Irishman in Dublin? 

We took an open barouche and drove two miles 
out of Milan to ** see ze echo,'* as the guide ex- 
pressed it. The road was smooth, it was bordered 
by trees, fields, and grassy meadows, and the soft 
air was filled with the odor of flowers. Troops of 
picturesque peasant girls, coming from work, hooted 
at us, shouted at us, made all manner of game of 
us, and entirely delighted me. My long-cherished 
judgment was confirmed. I always did think those 
frowsy, romantic, unwashed peasant girls I had read 
so much about in poetry were a glaring fraud. 

We enjoyed our jaunt. It was an exhilarating 
relief from tiresome sightseeing. 

We distressed ourselves very little about the 
astonishing echo the guide talked so much about. 
We were growing accustomed to encomiums on 
wonders that too often proved no wonders at all. 
And so we were most happily disappointed to find 



254 The Innocents Abroad 

in the sequel that the guide had even failed to rise to 
the magnitude of his subject. 

We arrived at a tumble-down old rookery called 
the Palazzo Simonetti — a massive hewn-stone affair 
occupied by a family of ragged Italians. A good- 
looking young girl conducted us to a window on 
the second floor which looked out on a court walled 
on three sides by tall buildings. She put her head 
out at the window and shouted. The echo answered 
more times than we could count. She took a speak- 
ing-trumpet and through it she shouted, sharp and 
quick, a single 

* * Ha ! ' ' The echo answered : 

•*Ha ha!! ha! ha! — ha! -ha! 

ha! h-a-a-a-a-a!'* and finally went off into a rollick- 
ing convulsion of the jolliest laughter that could be 
imagined. It was so joyful, so long-continued, 
so perfectly cordial and hearty, that everybody was 
forced to join in. There was no resisting it. 

Then the girl took a gun and fired it. We stood 
ready to count the astonishing clatter of reverbera- 
tions. We could not say one, two, three, fast 
enough, but we could dot our note-books with our 
pencil-points almost rapidly enough to take down a 
sort of shorthand report of the result. My page 
revealed the following account. I could not keep 
up, but I did as well as I could. 

I set down fifty-two distinct repetitions, and then 
the echo got the advantage of me. The doctor set 
down sixty-four, and thenceforth the echo moved 



The Innocents Abroad 255 

too fast for him, also. After the separate concus- 
sions could no longer be noted, the reverberations 
dwindled to a wild, long-sustained clatter of sounds 
such as a watchman^s rattle produces. It is likely 
that this is the most remarkable echo in the world. 

The doctor, in jest, offered to kiss the young girl, 
and was taken a little aback when she said he might 
for a franc ! The commonest gallantry compelled 
him to stand by his offer, and so he paid the franc 
and took the kiss. She was a philosopher. She 
said a franc was a good thing to have, and she did 
not care anything for one paltry kiss, because she 
had a million left. Then our comrade, always a 
shrewd business man, offered to take the whole cargo 
at thirty days, but that little financial scheme was a 
failure. 



CHAPTER XX. 

WE left Milan by rail. The cathedral six or 
seven miles behind us — vast, dreamy, blu- 
ish, snow-ciad mountains twenty miles in front of 
us, — these were the accented points in the scenery. 
The more immediate scenery consisted of fields and 
farmhouses outside the car and a monster-headed 
dwarf and a moustached woman inside it. These latter 
were not show-people. Alas, deformity and female 
beards are too common in Italy to attract attention. 

We passed through a range of wild, picturesque 
hills, steep, wooded, cone-shaped, with rugged crags 
projecting here and there, and with dwellings and 
ruinous castles perched away up toward the drifting 
clouds. We lunched at the curious old town of 
Como, at the foot of the lake, and then took the 
small steamer and had an afternoon's pleasure ex- 
cursion to this place, — Bellaglo. 

When we walked ashore, a party of policemen 
(people whose cocked hats and showy uniforms 
would shame the finest uniform in the military 
service of the United States) put us into a little 
stone cell and locked us in. We had the whole 

f2561 



The Innocents Abroad 25? 

passenger list for company, but their room would 
have been preferable, for there was no light, there 
were no windows, no ventilation. It was close and 
hot. We were much crowded. It was the Black 
Hole of Calcutta on a small scale. Presently a 
smoke rose about our feet — a smoke that smelt of 
all the dead things of earth, of all the putrefaction 
and corruption imaginable. 

We were there five minutes, and when we got out 
it was hard to tell which of us carried the vilest 
fragrance. 

These miserable outcasts called that '* fumi- 
gating" us, and the term was a tame one, indeed. 
They fumigated us to guard themselves against the 
cholera, though we hailed from no infected port. 
We had left the cholera far behind us all the time. 
However, they must keep epidemics away somehow 
or other, and fumigation is cheaper than soap. 
They must either wash themselves or fumigate other 
people. Some of the lower classes had rather die 
than wash, but the fumigation of strangers causes 
them no pangs. They need no fumigation them- 
selves. Their habits make it unnecessary. They 
carry their preventive with them; they sweat and 
fumigate all the day long, I trust I am a humble 
and a consistent Christian. I try to do what 
is right. I know it is my duty to ** pray for 
them that despitefully use me"; and therefore, 
hard as it is, I shall still try to pray for these 
fumigating, macaroni-stuffing organ-grinderSc 
17« 



tS8 The Innocents Abroad 

Our hotel sits at the water's edge — at least its 
rront garden does — and we walk among the shrub- 
bery and smoke at twilight; we look afar off at 
Switzerland and the Alps, and feel an indolent 
willingness to look no closer; we go down the steps 
and swim in the lake ; we take a shapely little boat 
and sail abroad among the reflections of the stars; 
lie on the thwarts and listen to the distant laughter, 
the singing, the soft melody of flutes and guitars 
that comes floating across the water from pleasuring 
gondolas; we close the evening with exasperating 
billiards on one of those same old execrable tables. 
A midnight luncheon in our ample bed-chamber; a 
final smoke in its contracted veranda facing the 
water, the gardens, and the mountains; a summing 
up of the day*s events. Then to bed, with drowsy 
brains harassed with a mad panorama that mixes up 
pictures of France, of Italy, of the ship, of the 
ocean, of home, in grotesque and bewildering dis- 
order. Then a melting away of familiar faces, of 
cities and of tossing waves, into a great calm of 
forgetfulness and peace. 

After which, the nightmare. 

Breakfast in the morning, and then the lake. 

I did not like it yesterday. I thought Lake Tahoe 
was much finer, I have to confess now, however^ 
that my judgment erred somewhat, though not ex- 
travagantly. I always had an idea that Como was a 
vast basin of water, like Tahoe, shut in by great 
mountains. Well, the border of huge mountains is 



The Innocents Abroad 259 

here, but the lake itself is not a basin. It is as 
crooked as any brook, and only from one-quarter to 
two-thirds as wide as the Mississippi. There is not 
a yard of low ground on either side of it — nothing 
but endless chains of mountains that spring abruptly 
from the water's edge, and tower to altitudes varying 
from a thousand to two thousand feet. Their craggy 
sides are clothed with vegetation, and white specks 
of houses peep out from the luxuriant foliage every- 
where; they are even perched upon jutting and 
picturesque pinnacles a thousand feet above your 
head. 

Again, for miles along the shores, handsome 
country seats, surrounded by gardens and groves, 
sit fairly in the water, sometimes in nooks carved by 
Nature out of the vine-hung precipices, and with no 
ingress or egress save by boats. Some have great 
broad stone staircases leading down to the water, 
with heavy stone balustrades ornamented with 
statuary and fancifully adorned with creeping vines 
and bright-colored flowers — for all the world like a 
drop-curtain in a theater, and lacking nothing but 
long-waisted, high-heeled women and plumed gal- 
lants in silken tights coming down to go serenading 
in the splendid gondola in waiting. 

A great feature of Como's attractiveness is the 
multitude of pretty houses and gardens that cluster 
upon its shores and on its mountain sides. They 
look so snug and so homelike, and at eventide when 
everything seems to slumber, and the music of the 



260 The Innocents Abroad 

vesper bells comes stealing over the water, one 
almost believes that nowhere else than on the Lake 
of Como can there be found such a paradise of 
tranquil repose. 

From my window here in Bellagio, I have a view 
of the other side of the lake now, which is as beau- 
tiful as a picture. A scarred and wrinkled precipice 
rises to a height of eighteen hundred feet ; on a tiny- 
bench half way up its vast wall, sits a little snow- 
flake of a church, no bigger than a martin-box, ap- 
parently ; skirting the base of the cliff are a hundred 
orange groves and gardens, flecked with glimpses of 
the white dwellings that are burled in them; in 
front, three or four gondolas lie idle upon the water 
— and in the burnished mirror of the lake, mountain, 
chapel, houses, groves, and boats are counterfeited 
so brightly and so clearly that one scarce knows 
where the reality leaves off and the reflection begins ! 

The surroundings of this picture are fine. A 
mile away, a grove-plumed promontory juts far into 
the lake and glasses its palace in the blue depths ; in 
midstream a boat is cutting the shining surface and 
leaving a long track behind, like a ray of light; the 
mountains beyond are veiled in a dreamy purple 
haze ; far in the opposite direction a tumbled mass 
of domes and verdant slopes and valleys bars the 
lake, and here, indeed, does distance lend enchant- 
ment to the view — for on this broad canvas, sun and 
clouds and the richest of atmospheres have blended 
a thousand tints together, and over its surface the 



The Innocents Abroad 261 

filmy lights and shadows drift, hour after hour, and 
glorify it with a beauty that seems reflected out of 
Heaven itself. Beyond all question, this is the most 
voluptuous scene we have yet looked upon. 

Last night the scenery was striking and pictur- 
esque. On the other side crags and trees and snowy 
houses were reflected in the lake with a wonderful 
distinctness, and streams of light from many a dis- 
tant window shot far abroad over the still waters. 
On this side, near at hand, great mansions, white 
with moonlight, glared out from the midst of masses 
of foliage that lay black and shapeless in the shad- 
ows that fell from the cliff above — and down in the 
margin of the lake every feature of the weird vision 
was faithfully repeated. 

To-day we have idled through a wonder of a 
garden attached to a ducal estate — but enough of 
description is enough, I judge. I suspect that this 
was the same place the gardener*s son deceived the 
Lady of Lyons with, but I do not know. You may 
have heard of the passage somewhere : 

"A deep vale, 
Shut out by Alpine hills from the rude world. 
Near a clear lake margined by fruits of gold 
And whispering myrtles: 
Glassing softest skies, cloudless, 
Save with rare and roseate shadows; 
A palace, lifting to eternal heaven its marbled walls. 
From out a glossy bower of coolest foliage musical 
with birds." 

That is all very well, except the ** clear ** part of 



262 The Innocents Abroad 

the lake. It certainly is clearer than a great many 
lakes, but how dull its waters are compared with the 
wonderful transparence of Lake Tahoe ! I speak of 
the north shore of Tahoe, where one can count the 
scales on a trout at a depth of a hundred and eighty 
feet. I have tried to get this statement off at par 
here, but with no success; so I have been obliged 
to negotiate it at fifty per cent, discount. At this 
rate I find some takers; perhaps the reader will 
receive it on the same terms — ninety feet instead of 
one hundred and eighty. But let it be remembered 
that those are forced terms — sheriff' s-sale prices. 
As far as I am privately concerned, I abate not a 
jot of the original assertion that in those strangely- 
magnifying waters one may count the scales on a 
trout (a trout of the large kind) at a depth of a 
hundred and eighty feet — may see every pebble on 
the bottom — might even count a paper of dray- 
pins. People talk of the transparent waters of the 
Mexican Bay of Acapulco, but in my own experience 
I know they cannot compare with those I am speak- 
ing of. I have fished for trout in Tahoe, and at a 
measured depth of eighty-four feet I have seen 
them put their noses to the bait and I could 
see their gills open and shut. I could hardly have 
seen the trout themselves at that distance in the 
open air. 

As I go back in spirit and recall that noble sea, 
reposing among the snow-peaks six thousand feet 
above the ocean, the conviction comes strong upon 



The Innocents Abroad 263 

me again that Como would only seem a bedizened 
little courtier in that august presence. 

Sorrow and misfortune overtake the legislature 
that still from year to year permits Tahoe to retain 
its unmusical cognomen ! Tahoe ! It suggests no 
crystal waters, no picturesque shores, no sublimity. 
Tahoe for a sea in the clouds ; a sea that has char- 
acter, and asserts it in solemn calms, at times, at 
times in savage storms ; a sea, whose royal seclusion 
is guarded by a cordon of sentinel peaks that lift 
their frosty fronts nine thousand feet above the level 
world ; a sea whose every aspect is impressive, 
whose belongings are all beautiful, whose lonely 
majesty types the Deity ! 

Tahoe means grasshoppers. It means grasshopper 
soup. It is Indian, and suggestive of Indians. They 
say it is Pi-ute — possibly it is Digger. I am satis- 
fied it was named by the Diggers — those degraded 
savages who roast their dead relatives, then mix the 
human grease and ashes of bones with tar, and 
** gaum *' it thick all over their heads and foreheads 
and ears, and go caterwauling about the hills and 
call it mourning. These are the gentry that named 
the lake. 

People say that Tahoe means ** Silver Lake'* — 
••Limpid Water''— ** Falling Leaf." Bosh! It 
means grasshopper soup, the favorite dish of the 
Digger tribe — and of the Pi-utes as well. It isn't 
worth while, in these practical times, for people to 
talk about Indian poetry — there never was any in 



264 The Innocents Abroad 

them — except in the Fenimore Cooper Indians, 
But they are an extinct tribe that never existed. 1 
know the Noble Red Man. I have camped with the 
Indians; I have been on the warpath with them, 
taken part in the chase with them — for grass- 
hoppers; helped them steal cattle; I have roamed 
with them, scalped them, had them for breakfast. 
I would gladly eat the whole race if I had a chance. 
But I am growing unreliable. I will return to my 
comparison of the lakes. Como is a little deeper 
than Tahoe, if people here tell the truth. They say 
it is eighteen hundred feet deep at this point, but it 
does not look a dead enough blue for that. Tahoe 
is one thousand five hundred and twenty-five feet 
deep in the center, by the State Geologist's measure- 
ment. They say the great peak opposite this town 
is five thousand feet high ; but I feel sure that three 
thousand feet of that statement is a good, honest lie. 
The lake is a mile wide here, and maintains about 
that width from this point to its northern extremity 
== — which is distant sixteen miles ; from here to its 
southern extremity — say fifteen miles — it is not 
over half a mile wide in any place, I should think. 
Its snow-clad mountains one hears so much about 
are only seen occasionally, and then in the distance, 
the Alps. Tahoe is from ten to eighteen miles 
wide, and its mountains shut it in like a wall. Their 
summits are never free from snow the year round. 
One thing about it is very strange : it never has even 
a skim of ice upon its surface, although lakes in the 



The Innocents Abroad 265 

same range of mountains, lying in a lower and 
warmer temperature, freeze over in winter. 

It is cheerful to meet a shipmate in these out-of- 
the-way places and compare notes with him. We 
have found one of ours here — an old soldier of the 
war, who is seeking bloodless adventures and rest 
from his campaigns, in these sunny lands.* 

♦ Col. J. Heron Foster, editor of a Pittsburgh journal, and a most 
estimable gentleman. As these sheets are being prepared for the press^, 
I am pained to learn of his decease shortly after his return home 
— M.T. 



CHAPTER XXL 

WE voyaged by steamer down the Lago di LeccOj 
through wild mountain scenery, and by ham- 
lets and villas, and disembarked at the town of 
Lecco. They said it was two, hours, by carriage, to 
the ancient city of Bergamo, and that we would 
arrive there in good season for the railway train. 
We got an open barouche and a wild, boisterous 
driver, and set out. It was delightful. We had a 
fast team and a perfectly smooth road. There were 
towering cliffs on our left, and the pretty Lago di 
Lecco on our right, and every now and then it 
rained on us. Just before starting, the driver picked 
up, in the street, a stump of a cigar an inch long, 
and put it in his mouth. When he had carried it 
thus about an hour, I thought it would be only 
Christian charity to give him a light. I handed him 
my cigar, which I had just lit, and he put it in his 
mouth and returned his stump to his pocket! I 
never saw a more sociable man. At least I never 
saw a man who was more sociable on a short ac- 
quaintance. 

We saw interior Italy now. The houses were of 

<266> 



The Innocents Abroid 267 

solid stone, and not often in good repair. The 

peasants and their children were idle, as a general 
thing, and the donkeys and chickens made them- 
selves at home in drawing-room and bed-chamber 
and were not molested. The drivers of each and 
every one of the slow-moving market-carts we met 
were stretched in the sun upon their merchandise, 
sound asleep. Every three or four hundred yards, 
it seemed to me, we came upon the shrine of some 
saint or other — a rude picture of him built into a 
huge cross or a stone pillar by the roadside. Some 
of the pictures of the Saviour were curiosities in 
their way. They represented him stretched upon 
the cross, his countenance distorted with agony« 
From the wounds of the crown of thorns ; from the 
pierced side; from the mutilated hands and feet; 
from the scourged body — -from every hand-breadth 
of his person, streams of blood were flowing! Such 
a gory, ghastly spectacle would frighten the children 
out of their senses, I should think. There were 
some unique auxiliaries to the painting which added 
to its spirited effect. These were genuine wooden 
and iron implements, and were prominently disposed 
round about the figure: a bundle of nails; the 
hammer to drive them ; the sponge ; the reed that 
supported it ; the cup of vinegar ; the ladder for the 
ascent of the cross; the spear that pierced the 
Saviour's side. The crown of thorns was made of 
real thorns, and was nailed to the sacred head. In 
some Italian church paintings, even by the old 



268 The Innocents Abroad 

masters, the Saviour and the Virgin wear silver oi 
gilded crowns that are fastened to the pictured head 
with nails. The effect is as grotesque as it is incon- 
gruous. 

Here and there, on the fronts of roadside inns, 
we found huge, coarse frescoes of suffering martyrs 
like those in the shrines. It could not have dimin- 
ished their sufferings any to be so uncouthly repre- 
sentede We were in the heart and home of priest- 
craft — of a happy, cheerful, contented ignorance, 
superstition, degradation, poverty, indolence, and 
everlasting unaspiring worthlessness. And we said 
fervently. It suits these people precisely ; let them 
enjoy it, along with the other animals, and Heaven 
forbid that they be molested. We feel no malice 
toward these fumigators. 

We passed through the strangest, funniest, un- 
dreamt-of old towns, wedded to the customs and 
steeped in the dreams of the elder ages, and per- 
fectly unaware that the world turns round ! And 
perfectly indifferent, too, as to whether it turns 
around or stands still. They have nothing to do but 
eat and sleep and sleep and eat, and toil a little 
when they can get a friend to stand by and keep 
them awake. They are not paid for thinking — they 
are not paid to fret about the world's concerns. 
They were not respectable people — they were not 
worthy people — they were not learned and wise 
and brilliant people — but in their breasts, all their 
Stupid lives long, resteth a peace that passeth under- 



The Innocents Abroad 269 

standing! How can men, calling themselves men, 
consent to be so degraded and happy. 

We whisked by many a gray old medieval castle, 
clad thick with ivy that swung its green banners 
down from towers and turrets where once some old 
Crusader's flag had floated. The driver pointed to 
one of these ancient fortresses, and said (I trans- 
late) : 

** Do you see that great iron hook that projects 
from the wall just under the highest window in the 
ruined tower?" 

We said we could not see it at such a distance, 
but had no doubt it was there. 

**Well,** he said, ** there is a legend connected 
with that iron hook. Nearly seven hundred years 
ago, that castle was the property of the noble Count 
Luigi Gennaro Guido Alphonso di Genova " 

** What was his other name?** said Dan. 

** He had no other name. The name I have 
spoken was all the name he had. He was the son 
of ** 



** Poor but honest parents — that is all right — 
never mind the particulars — go on with the legend.** 

THE LEGEND. 

Well, then, all the world, at that time, was in a 
wild excitement about the Holy Sepulchre. All the 
great feudal lords in Europe were pledging their 
lands and pawning their plate to fit out men-at-arms 
so that they might join the grand armies of Christen- 

x8 



270 The innocents Abroad 

dom and win renown in the Holy Wars. The Count 
Luigi raised money, hke the rest, and one mild 
September morning, armed with battle-axe, portcullis 
and thundering culverin, he rode through the greaves 
and bucklers of his donjon-keep with as gallant a 
troop of Christian bandits as ever stepped in Italy. 
He had his sword, Excalibur, with him. His beau- 
tiful countess and her young daughter waved him a 
tearful adieu from the battering-rams and buttresses 
of the fortress, and he galloped away with a happy 
heart. 

He made a raid on a neighboring baron and com- 
pleted his outfit with the booty secured. He then 
razed the castle to the ground, massacred the family, 
and moved on. They were hardy fellows in the 
grand old days of chivalry. Alas ! those days will 
never come again. 

Count Luigi grew high in fame in Holy Land^ 
He plunged into the carnage of a hundred battles, 
but his good Excalibur always brought him out 
alive, albeit often sorely wounded. His face be- 
came browned by exposure to the Syrian sun in 
long marches; he suffered hunger and thirst; he 
pined in prisons, he languished in loathsome plague- 
hospitals. And many and many a time he thought 
of his loved ones at home, and wondered if all was 
well with them. But his heart said. Peace, is not 
thy brother watching over thy household ? 

Forty-two years waxed and waned ; the good fight 



The Innocents Abroad 271 

was won ; Godfrey reigned in Jerusalem — the Chris- 
tian hosts reared the banner of the cross above the 
Holy Sepulchre ! 

Twilight was approaching. Fifty harlequins, in 
flowing robes, approached this castle wearily, for 
they were on foot, and the dust upon their garments 
betokened that they had traveled far. They over« 
took a peasant, and asked him if it were likely they 
could get food and a hospitable bed there, for love 
of Christian charity, and if, perchance, a moral 
parlor entertainment might meet with generous 
countenance — **for,'* said they, **this exhibition 
hath no feature that could offend the most fastidious 
taste." 

'* Marry,** quoth the peasant, "* an' it please your 
worships, ye had better journey many a good rood 
hence with your juggling circus than trust your bones 
in yonder castle.*' 

** How now, sirrah!" exclaimed the chief monk, 
** explain thy ribald speech, or by'r Lady it shall go 
hard with thee." 

'* Peace, good mountebank, I did but utter the 
truth that was in my heart. San Paolo be 
my witness that did ye but find the stout Count 
Leonardo in his cups, sheer from the castle's top- 
most battlements would he hurl ye all! Alack-a- 
day ! the good Lord Luigi reigns not here in these 
sad times." 

'* The good Lord Luigi?" 

** Aye, none other, please your worship. In hi<^ 



272 The Innocents Abroad 

day, the poor rejoiced in plenty and the rich he did 
oppress; taxes were not known, the fathers of the 
church waxed fat upon his bounty ; travelers went 
and came, with none to interfere ; and whosoever 
would, might tarry in his halls in cordial welcome, 
and eat his bread and drink his wine, withal. But 
woe is me ! some two and forty years agone the 
good count rode hence to fight for Holy Cross, and 
many a year hath flown since word or token have we 
had of him. Men say his bones lie bleaching in the 
fields of Palestine.** 

"And now?'* 

** Now ! God *a mercy, the cruel Leonardo lords 
it in the castle. He wrings taxes from the poor; 
he robs all travelers that journey by his gates ; he 
spends his days in feuds and murders, and his nights 
in revel and debauch ; he roasts the fathers of the 
church upon his kitchen spits, and enjoyeth the 
same, calling it pastime. These thirty years Luigi's 
countess hath not been seen by any he in all this 
land, and many whisper that she pines in the 
dungeons of the castle for that she will not wed 
with Leonardo, saying her dear lord still liveth and 
that she will die ere she prove false to him. They 
whisper likewise that her daughter is a prisoner as 
well. Nay, good jugglers, seek ye refreshment 
otherwheres. 'Twere better that ye perished In a 
Christian way than that ye plunged from off yon 
dizzy tower. Give ye good-day." 

" God keep ye, gentle knave — farewell." 



The Innocents Abroad 273 

But heedless of the peasant's warning, the players 
moved straightway toward the castle. 

Word was brought to Count Leonardo that a 
company of mountebanks besought his hospitality. 

** 'Tis well. Dispose of them in the customary 
manner. Yet stay! I have need of them. Let 
them come hither. Later, cast them from the 
battlements — or — how many priests have ye on 
hand?" 

**The day's results are meager, good my lord. 
An abbot and a dozen beggarly friars is all we have.'* 

** Hell and furies! Is the estate going to seed? 
Send hither the mountebanks. Afterward, broil 
them with the priests." 

The robed and close-cowled harlequins entered. 
The grim Leonardo sate in state at the head of his 
council board. Ranged up and down the hall on 
either hand stood near a hundred men-at-arms. 

** Ha, villains!" quoth the count, **What can ye 
do to earn the hospitality ye crave?" 

** Dread lord and mighty, crowded audiences have 
greeted our humble efforts with rapturous applause. 
Among our body count we the versatile and talented 
Ugolino ; the justly celebrated Rodolpho ; the gifted 
and accomplished Roderlgo ; the management have 
spared neither pains nor expense " 

**S'death! what can ye do? Curb thy prating 
tongue." 

** Good my lord, in acrobatic feats, in practice 
with the dumb-bells, in balancing and ground and 
18. 



274 The Innocents Abroad 

lofty tumbling are we versed — and sith your high- 
ness asketh me, I venture here to publish that in the 
truly marvelous and entertaining Zampillaerosta- 
tion *' 

** Gag him ! throttle him ! Body of Bacchus ! am 
I a dog that I am to be assailed with polysyllabled 
blasphemy like to this? But hold ! Lucretia, Isabel, 
stand forth ! Sirrah, behold this dame, this weep- 
ing wench. The first I marry, within the hour; the 
other shall dry her tears or feed the vultures. Thou 
and thy vagabonds shall crown the wedding with thy 
merry-makings. Fetch hither the priest!** 

The dame sprang toward the chief player. 

** Oh, save me!" she cried; ** save me from a 
fate far worse than death ! Behold these sad eyes, 
these sunken cheeks, this withered frame ! See thou 
the wreck this fiend hath made, and let thy heart be 
moved with pity ! Look upon this damosel ; note 
her wasted form, her halting step, her bloomless 
cheeks where youth should blush and happiness 
exult in smiles ! Hear us, and have compassion. 
This monster was my husband's brother. He who 
should have been our shield against all harm, hath 
kept us shut within the noisome caverns of his 
donjon-keep for, lo, these thirty years. And for 
what crime? None other than that I would not 
belie my troth, root out my strong love for him who 
marches with the legions of the cross in Holy Land 
(for oh, he is not dead), and wed with him! Save 
as, oh, save thy persecuted suppliants!'^ 




The Innocents Abroad 275 

She flung herself at his feet and clasped his knees. 

'* Ha!-ha!-ha!'* shouted the brutal Leonardo, 
''Priest, to thy work!" and he dragged the weep- 
ing dame from her refuge. **Say, once for all^ 
will you be mine? — for by my halidome, that 
breath that uttereth thy refusal shall be thy last on 
earth!'* 

"Ne-VEr!" 

"Then die!" and the sword leaped from its 
scabbard. 

Quicker than thought, quicker than the lightning"^ 
flash, fifty monkish habits disappeared, and fift> 
knights in splendid armor stood revealed \ fifty 
falchions gleamed in air above the men-at-arms, and 
brighter, fiercer than them all, flamed Excallbur 
aloft, and cleaving downward struck the brutal 
Leonardo's weapon from his grasp ! 

•* A Lulgi to the rescue ! Whoop !'* 

** A Leonardo ! tare an ouns !" 

"Oh, God, oh, God, my husband!** 

" Oh, God, oh, God, my wife!'* 

••My father!" 

" My precious!** [Tableau.] 

Count Luigi bound his usurping brother hand and 
foot. The practiced knights from Palestine made 
holiday sport of carving the awkward men-at-arms 
into chops and steaks. The victory was completCo 
Happiness reigned. The knights all married the 
daughter- Joy ! wassail ! finis I 

'^ But what did they do with the wicked brother?^' 



276 The Innocents Abroad 

**0h, nothing — only hanged him on that Iron 
hook I was speaking of. By the chin." 

**Ashow?" 

" Passed it up through his gills into his mouth." 

'' Leave him there?** 

'' Couple of years.** 

'* Ah — is — is he dead?** 

*' Six hundred and fifty years ago, or such a 
matter." 

** Splendid legend — splendid lie — drive on.** 

We reached the quaint old fortified city of Ber- 
gamo, the renowed in history, some three-quarters 
of an hour before the train was ready to start. The 
place has thirty or forty thousand inhabitants and is 
remarkable for being the birthplace of harlequin. 
When we discovered that, that legend of our driver 
took to itself a new interest in our eyes. 

Rested and refreshed, we took the rail happy and 
contented. I shall not tarry to speak of the hand- 
some Lago di Garda; its stately castle that holds in 
its stony bosom the secrets of an age so remote that 
even tradition goeth not back to it; the imposing 
mountain scenery that ennobles the landscape there- 
abouts; nor yet of ancient Padua or haughty 
Verona; nor of their Montagues and Capulets, 
their famous balconies and tombs of Juliet and 
Romeo et al, , but hurry straight to the ancient city 
of the sea, the widowed bride of the Adriatic. It 
was a long, long ride. But toward evening, as we 
5wt silent and hardly conscious of where we were • 



The Innocenis Abroaci 277 

subdued into that meditative calm that comes so 
surely after a conversational storm — some one 
shouted : 

'* Venice!*' 

And sure enough, afloat on the placid sea a 
league away, lay a great city, with its towers and 
domes and steeples drowsing in a golden mist of 
sunset. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THIS Venice, which was a haughty, invincible, 
magnificent Repubh'c for nearly fourteen hun- 
dred years; whose armies compelled the world's ap- 
plause whenever and wherever they battled ; whose 
navies well nigh held dominion of the seas, and 
whose merchant fleets whitened the remotest oceans 
with their sails and loaded these piers with the pro- 
ducts of every clime, is fallen a prey to poverty, 
neglect and melancholy decay. Six hundred years 
ago, Venice was the Autocrat of Commerce; her 
mart was the great commercial center, the distrib- 
uting house from whence the enormous trade of the 
Orient was spread abroad over the Western world. 
To-day her piers are deserted, her warehouses are 
empty, her merchant fleets are vanished, her armies 
and her navies are but memories. Her glory is de- 
parted, and with her crumbling grandeur of wharves 
and palaces about her she sits among her stagnant 
lagoons, forlorn and beggared, forgotten of the 
world. She, that in her palmy days commanded the 
commerce of a hemisphere and made the weal or 
woe of nations with a beck of her puissant finger^ is 

(278) 



The Innocents Abroad 279 

become the humblest among the peoples of the 
earth, — a peddler of glass 'beads for women, and 
trifling toys and trinkets for school-girls and children. 

The venerable Mother of the Republics is scarce a 
fit subject for flippant speech or the idle gossiping 
of tourists. It seems a sort of sacrilege to disturb 
the glamour of old romance that pictures her to 
us softly from afar off as through a tinted mist, and 
curtains her ruin and her desolation from our view. 
One ought, indeed, to turn away from her rags, her 
poverty, and her humiliation, and think of her only 
as she was when she sunk the fleets of Charlemagne ; 
when she humbled Frederick Barbarossa or waved 
her victorious banners above the battlements of Con- 
stantinople. 

We reached Venice at eight in the evening, and 
entered a hearse belonging to the Grand Hotel 
d'Europe. At any rate, it was more like a hearse 
than anything else, though, to speak by the card, it 
was a gondola. And this was the storied gondola 
of Venice ! — the fairy boat in which the princely 
cavaliers of the olden time were wont to cleave the 
waters of the moonlit canals and look the eloquence 
of love into the soft eyes of patrician beauties, while 
the gay gondolier in silken doublet touched his 
guitar and sang as only gondoliers can sing ! This 
the famed gondola and this the gorgeous gondolier ! 
■ — the one an inky, rusty old canoe with a sable 
hearse-body clapped on to the middle of it, and the 
other a mangy, barefooted gutter-snipe with a por- 



280 The Innocents Abroad 

tion of his raiment on exhibition which should have 
been sacred from public scrutiny. Presently, as he 
turned a corner and shot his hearse into a dismal 
ditch between two long rows of towering, untenanted 
buildings, the gay gondolier began to sing, true to 
the traditions of his race. I stood it a little while. 
Then I said : 

** Now, here, Roderigo Gonzales Michael Angelo, 
Fm a pilgrim^, and Tm a stranger, but I am not 
going to have my feelings lacerated by any such 
caterwauling as that. If that goes on, one of us 
has got to take water. It is enough that my cher- 
ished dreams of Venice have been blighted forever 
as to the romantic gondola and the gorgeous gon- 
doher; this system of destruction shall go no 
farther; I will accept the hearse, under protest, and 
you may fly your flag of truce in peace, but here I 
register a dark and bloody oath that you shan't sing. 
Another yelp, and overboard you go." 

I began to feel that the old Venice of song and 
story had departed forever. But I was too hasty. 
In a few minutes we swept gracefully out into the 
Grand Canal, and under the mellow moonlight the 
Venice of poetry and romance stood revealed. 
Right from the water's edge rose long lines of 
stately palaces of marble; gondolas were gliding 
swiftly hither and thither and disappearing suddenly 
through unsuspected gates and alleys; ponderous 
stone bridges threw their shadows athwart the glit- 
termg waves There was life and motion every 



The Innocents Abroad! 281 

where, and yet everywhere there was a hush, a 
stealthy sort of stillness, that was suggestive of secret 
enterprises of bravoes and of lovers; and, clad half 
in moonbeams and half in mysterious shadows, the 
grim old mansions of the Republic seemed to have 
an expression about them of having an eye out for 
just such enterprises as these^-at that same moment^ 
Music came floating over the waters — Venice was 
complete. 

It was a beautiful picture — very soft and dreamy 
and beautiful. But what was this Venice to com- 
pare with the Venice of midnight ? Nothing. There 
was a fete — a grand fete in honor of some saint 
who had been instrumental in checking the cholera 
three hundred years ago, and all Venice was abroad 
on the water. It was no common affair, for the 
Venetians did not know how soon they might need 
the saint's services again, now that the cholera was 
spreading everywhere. So in one vast space -— say 
a third of a mile wide and two miles long — were 
collected two thousand gondolas, and every one of 
them had from two to ten, twenty, and even thirty 
colored lanterns suspended about it, and from four 
to a dozen occupants. Just as far as the eye could 
reach, these painted lights were massed together — - 
like a vast garden of many-colored flowers, except 
that these blossoms were never still; they were 
ceaselessly gliding in and out, and mingling to- 
gether, and seducing you into bewildering attempt? 
tQ foUpw their mazy evolutions. Here and there a 



282 The Innocents Abroad 

strong red, green, or blue glare from a rocket that 
was scruggling to get away splendidly illuminated all 
the boats around it. Every gondola that swam by 
us, with its crescents and pyramids and circles of 
colored lamps hung aloft, and lighting up the faces 
of the young and the sweet-scented and lovely 
below, was a picture ; and the reflections of those 
lights, so long, so slender, so numberless, so many- 
colored and so distorted and wrinkled by the waves, 
was a picture likewise, and one that was enchantingly 
beautiful. Many and many a party of young ladies 
and gentlemen had their state gondolas handsomely 
decorated, and ate supper on board, bringing their 
swallow- tailed, white-cravated varlets to wait upon 
them, and having their tables tricked out as if for a 
bridal supperc They had brought along the costly 
globe lamps from their drawing-rooms, and the lace 
and silken curtains from the same places, I suppose. 
And they had also brought pianos and guitars, and 
they played and sang operas, while the plebeian 
paper-lanterned gondolas from the suburbs and the 
back alleys crowded around to stare and listen. 

There was music everywhere — choruses, string 
bands, brass bands, flutes, everything. I was so 
surrounded, walled in with music, magnificence, and 
loveliness, that I became inspired with the spirit of 
the scene, and sang one tune myself. However, 
when I observed that the other gondolas had sailed 
away, and my gondolier was preparing to go over 
board, I stopped. 



The Innocents Abroad 283 

The fete was magnificent. They kept it up the 
whole night long, and I never enjoyed myself better 
than I did while it lasted. 

What a funny old city this Queen of the Adriatic 
13 ! Narrow streets, vast, gloomy marble palaces; 
black with the corroding damps of centuries, and all 
partly submerged; no dry land visible anywhere, 
and no sidewalks worth mentioning; if you want to 
go to church, to the theater, or to the restaurant, 
you must call a gondola. It must be a paradise for 
cripples, for verily a man has no use for legs here. 

For a day or two the place looked so like an 
overflowed Arkansas town, because of its currentless 
waters laving the very doorsteps of all the houses, 
and the cluster of boats made fast under the win- 
dows, or skimming in and out of the alleys and by- 
ways, that I could not get rid of the impression that 
there was nothing the matter here but a spring 
freshet, and that the river would fall in a few weeks 
and leave a dirty high-water mark on the houses^, 
and the streets full of mud and rubbish. 

In the glare of day, there is little poetry about 
Venice, but under the charitable moon her stained 
palaces are white again, their battered sculptures are 
hidden in shadows, and the old city seems crowned 
once more with the grandeur that was hers five hun- 
dred years ago. It is easy, then, in fancy, to people 
these silent canals with plumed gallants and faif 
ladies — with Shylocks in gaberdine and sandals, 
venturing loans upon the rich argosies of Venetian 



284 The Innocents Abroad 

commerce — with Othellos and Desdemonas, with 
lagos and Roderigos — • w^ith noble fleets and victori- 
ous legions returning from the wars. In the treach- 
erous sunlight we see Venice decayed, forlorn, 
poverty-stricken, and commerceless — forgotten and 
utterly insignificant. But in the moonlight, her 
fourteen centuries of greatness fling their glories 
about her, and once more is she the princeliest 
among the nations of the earth. 

** There is a glorious city in the sea; 
The sea is in the broad, the narrow streets. 
Ebbing and flowing; and the salt sea-weed 
Qmgs to the marble of her palaces. 
No track of men, no footsteps to and fro, 
Lead to her gates ! The path lies o'er the sea. 
Invisible : and from the land we went, 
As to a floating city — steering in, 
And gliding up her streets, as in a dream. 
So smoothly, silently — by many a dome, 
Mosque-like, and many a stately portico. 
The statues ranged along an azure sky; 
By many a pile, in more than Eastern pride. 
Of old the residence of merchant kings; 
The fronts of some, tho' time had shatter'd them, 
Still glowing with the richest hues of art, 
As tho' the wealth within them had run o'er." 

What would one naturally wish to see first in 
Venice? The Bridge of Sighs, of course — and next 
the Church and the Great Square of St. Mark, the 
Bronze Horses, and the famous Lion of St. Mark. 

We intended to go to the Bridge of Sighs, but 
happened into the Ducal Palace first — a buildins 



The innocents Abroad 2«S 

which necessarily figures largely in Venetian poetry 
and tradition. In the Senate Chamber of the ancient 
Republic we wearied our eyes with staring at acres 
of historical paintings by Tintoretto and Paul 
Veronese, but nothing struck us forcibly except the 
one thing that strikes all strangers forcibly- — a 
black square in the midst of a gallery of portraits. 
In one long row, around the great hall, were painted 
the portraits of the doges of Venice (venerable 
fellows, with flowing white beards, for of the three 
hundred Senators eligible to the office,, the oldest 
was usually chosen doge), and each had its compli- 
mentary inscription attached — till you came to the 
place that should have had Marino Faliero's picture 
in it, and that was blank and black — blank, except 
that it bore a terse inscription, saying that the con- 
spirator had died for his crime. It seemed cruel to 
keep that pitiless inscription still staring from the 
walls after the unhapp)^ wretch had been in his grave 
five hundred years. 

At the head of the Giant* s Staircase, where Marino 
Faliero was beheaded, and where the doges were 
crowned in ancient times, two small slits in the stone 
wall were pointed out — two harmless, insignificant 
orifices that would never attract a stranger's atten- 
tion — yet these were the terrible Lions' Mouths! 
The heads were gone (knocked off by the French 
during their occupation of Venice) , but these were 
the throats, down which went the anonymous accu- 
sation, thrust in secretly at dead of night by an 
19 



286 The innocents Abroad 

enemy, that doomed many an innocent man to walk 
the Bridge of Sighs and descend into the dungeon 
which none entered and hoped to see the sun again. 
This was in the old days when the Patricians alone 
governed Venice — the common herd had no vote 
and no voice. There were one thousand five hun- 
dred Patricians; from these, three hundred Senators 
were chosen; from the Senators a Doge and a 
Council of Ten were selected, and by secret ballot 
the Ten chose from their own number a Council of 
Three. All these were government spies, then, and 
every spy was under surveillance himself — men 
spoke in whispers in Venice, and no man trusted his 
neighbor — not always his own brother. No man 
knew who the Council of Three were — not even 
the Senate, not even the Doge; the members of 
that dread tribunal met at night in a chamber to 
themselves, masked, and robed from head to foot in 
scarlet cloaks, and did not even know each other, 
unless by voice. It was their duty to judge heinous 
political crimes, and from their sentence there was 
no appeal. A nod to the executioner was sufficient. 
The doomed man was marched down a hall and out 
at a doorway into the covered Bridge of Sighs, 
through it and inio the dungeon and unto his death. 
At no time in his transit was he visible to any save 
his conductor. If a man had an enemy in those old 
days, the cleverest thing he could do was to slip a 
note for the Council of Three into the Lion's mouth, 
saying '*This man is plottmg agamst tne govern- 



The Innocents Abroad 287 

ment/" If the awful Three found no proof, ten to 
one they would drown him anyhow, because he was 
a deep rascal, since his plots were unsolvable 
Masked judges and masked executioners, with un- 
limited power, and no appeal from their judgments, 
in that hard, cruel age, were not likely to be lenient 
with men they suspected yet could not convict^ 

We walked through the hall of the Council of 
Ten. and presently entered the infernal den of the 
Council of Three 

The table around which they had sat was there 
still, and likewise the stations where the masked 
inquisitors and executioners formerly stood, frozen^ 
upright and silent, till they received a bloody order;^ 
and then, without a word, moved off, like the inex- 
orable machines they were, to carry it out. The 
frescoes on the walls were startlingly suited to the 
place In all the other saloons, the halls, the great 
state chambers of the palace, the walls and ceilings 
were bright with gilding, rich with elaborate carvings 
and resplendent with gallant pictures of Venetian 
victories in war, and Venetian display in foreign 
courts, and hallowed with portraits of the Virgin^ 
the Saviour of men, and the holy saints that 
preached the Gospel of Peace upon earth — but 
here, in dismal contrast, were none but pictures of 
death and dreadful suffering ! — not a living figure 
but was writhing in torture, not a dead one but was 
smeared with blood, gashed with wounds, and dis-^ 
torted with the:^gonies that had taken away its life ? 



288 The innocents Abroad 

From the palace to the gloomy prison is but a 
step — one might almost jump across the narrow 
canal that intervenes. The ponderous stone Bridge 
of Sighs crosses it at the second story — a bridge 
that is a covered tunnel — you cannot be seen when 
you walk in it. It is partitioned lengthwise, and 
through one compartment walked such as bore light 
sentences in ancient times, and through the other 
marched sadly the wretches whom the Three had 
doomed to lingering misery and utter oblivion in the 
dungeons, or to sudden and mysterious death, 
Down below the level of the water, by the light of 
smoking torches, we were shown the damp, thick- 
walled cells where many a proud patrician's life was 
eaten away by the long-drawn miseries of solitary 
imprisonment — without light, air, books; naked, 
unshaven, uncombed, covered with vermin; his use- 
less tongue forgetting its office, with none to speak 
to; the days and nights of his life no longer marked, 
but merged into one eternal eventless night; far 
away from all cheerful sounds, buried in the silence 
of a tomb; forgotten by his helpless friends, and 
his fate a dark mystery to them forever; losing his 
own memory at last, and knowing no more who he 
was or how he came there ; devouring the loaf of 
bread and drinking the water that were thrust into 
the cell by unseen hands, and troubling his worn 
spirit no more with hopes and fears and doubts and 
longings to be free ; ceasing to scratch vain prayers 
^nd complainings on walls where none, not even 



The innocents ADroad 289 

himself, could see them, and resigning himself to 
hopeless apathy, driveling childishness, lunacy? 
Many and many a sorrowful story like this these 
stony walls could tell if they could but speak. 

In a little narrow corridor, near by, they showed 
us where many a prisoner, after lying in the dun- 
geons until he was forgotten by all save his perse- 
cutors, was brought by masked executioners and 
garroted, or sewed up in a sack, passed through a 
little window to a boat, at dead of night, and taken 
to some remote spot and drowned. 

They used to show to visitors the implements of 
torture wherewith the Three were wont to worm 
secrets out of the accused — villainous machines for 
crushing thumbs; the stocks where a prisoner sat 
immovable while water fell drop by drop upon his 
head till the torture was more than humanity could 
bear; and a devilish contrivance of steel, which in- 
closed a prisoner's head like a shell, and crushed it 
slowly by means of a screw. It bore the stains of 
blood that had trickled through its joints long ago^ 
and on one side it had a projection whereon the tor- 
turer rested his elbow comfortably and bent down 
his ear to catch the moanings of the sufferer perish- 
ing within. 

Of course, we went to see the venerable relic of 
the ancient glory of Venice, with its pavements worn 
and broken by the passing feet of a thousand years 
of plebeians and patricians — The Cathedral of Sto 
Mark. It is built entirely of precious marbles, 



290 The Innocents Abroad 

brought from the Orient— nothing in Its composi- 
tion is domestic. Its hoary traditions make it an 
object of absorbing interest to even the most careless 
stranger, and thus far it had interest for me ; but no 
further. I could not go into ecstasies over its coarse 
mosaics, its unlovely Byzantine architecture, or its 
five hundred curious interior columns from as many 
distant quarries. Everything was worn out — every 
block of stone was smooth and almost shapeless 
with the polishing hands and shoulders of loungers 
who devoutly idled here in bygone centuries and 
have died and gone to theilev — no, simply died, I 
mean. 

Under the altar repose the ashes of St. Mark-— 
and Matthew, Luke, and John, too, for all I know, 
Venice reveres those relics above all things earthly-. 
For fourteen hundred years St. Mark has been her 
patron saint. Everything about the city seems to be 
named after himx or so named as to refer to him in 
some way — ^so named, or some purchase rigged in 
some way to scrape a sort of hurrahing acquaintance 
with him. That seems to be the idea. To be on 
good terms with St. Mark seems to be the very 
summit of Venetian ambition. They say St. Mark 
had a tame lion, and used to travel with him — and 
everywhere that St. Mark went, the lion was sure to 
go. It was his protector, his friend, his librarian. 
And so the Winged Lion of St. Mark, with the open 
Bible under his paw, is a favorite emblem in the 
grand old city. It casts its shadow from the most 



The Innocents Abroad 291 

ancient pillar in Venice, in the Grand Square of St, 
Mark, upon the throngs of free citizens below, and 
has so done for many a long century. The winged 
lion is found everywhere — and doubtless here, 
where the winged lion is, no harm can come. 

St. Mark died at Alexandria, in Egypt. He was 
martyred, I think. However, that has nothing to 
do with my legend. About the founding of the city 
of Venice — say four hundred and fifty years after 
Christ (for Venice is much younger that any other 
Italian city) — a priest dreamed that an angel told 
him that until the remains of St. Mark were brought 
to Venice, the city could never rise to high distinc- 
tion among the nations; that the body must be 
captured, brought to the city, and a magnificent 
church built over it ; and that if ever the Venetians 
allowed the Saint to be removed from his new rest- 
ing place, in that day Venice ivould perish from off 
the face of the earth. The priest proclaimed his 
dream, and forthwith Venice set about procuring the 
corpse of St. Mark. One expedition after another 
tried and failed, but the project was never abandoned 
during four hundred years. At last it was secured 
by stratagem, in the year eight hundred and some- 
thing. The commander of a Venetian expedition 
disguised himself, stole the bones, separated them, 
and packed them in vessels filled with lard. The 
religion of Mahomet causes its devotees to abhor 
anything that is in the nature of pork, and so when 
the Christian was stopped by the officers at th*^ 

8« 



292 The Innocents Abroad 

gates of the city, they only glanced once into his 
precious baskets, then turned up their noses at the 
unholy lard, and let him go. The bones were buried 
in the vaults of the grand cathedral, which had been 
waiting long years to receive them, and thus the 
safety and the greatness of Venice were secured. 
And to this day there be those in Venice who believe 
that if those holy ashes were stolen away, the ancient 
city would vanish like a dream, and its foundations 
be buried forever in the unremembering sea. 



CHAPTER XXIIL 

THE Venetian gondola is as free and graceful, m 
its gliding movement, as a serpent. It is 
twenty or thirty feet long, and is narrow and deep, 
like a canoe ; its sharp bow and stern sweep upward 
from the water like the horns of a crescent with the. 
abruptness of the curve slightly modified. 

The bow is ornamented with a steel comb with a 
battle-axe attachment which threatens to cut passing 
boats in two occasionally, but never does. The 
gondola is painted black because in the zenith of 
Venetian magnificence the gondolas became too 
gorgeous altogether, and the Senate decreed that all 
such display must cease, and a solemn, unembel* 
lished black be substituted. If the truth were 
known, it would doubtless appear that rich plebeians 
grew too prominent in their affectation of patrician 
show on the Grand Canal, and required a wholesome 
snubbing. Reverence for the hallowed Past and its 
traditions keeps the dismal fashion in force now that 
the compulsion exists no longer. So let it remain. 
It is the color of mourning. Venice mourns. The 
stern of the boat is decked over and the gondolier 

(293) 



294 The Innocents Abroad 

stands there. He uses a single oar — a long blade, 
of course, for he stands nearly erect. A wooden 
peg, a foot and a half high, with two slight crooks 
or curves in one side of it and one in the other, 
projects above the starboard gunwale. Against that 
peg the gondolier takes a purchase with his oar, 
changing it at intervals to the other side of the peg 
or dropping it into another of the crooks, as the 
steering of the craft may demand — and how in the 
world he can back and fill, shoot straight ahead, or 
flirt suddenly around a corner, and make the oar 
stay in those insignificant notches, is a problem to 
me and a never-diminishing matter of interest. I 
am afraid I study the gondolier's marvelous skill 
more than I do the sculptured palaces we glide 
among. He cuts a corner so closely, now and then, 
or misses another gondola by such an imperceptible 
hair-breadth, that I feel myself ** scrooching,'* as the 
children say, just as one does when a buggy wheel 
grazes his elbow. But he makes all his calculations 
with the nicest precision, and goes darting in and 
out among a Broadway confusion of busy craft with 
the easy confidence of the educated hackman. He 
never makes a mistake. 

Sometimes we go flying down the great canals at 
such a gait that we can get only the merest glimpses 
into front doors, and again, in obscure alleys in the 
suburbs, we put on a solemnity suited to the silence, 
the mildew, the stagnant waters, the clinging weeds, 
the deserted houses, and the general lifelessness 



The Innocents Abroad 295 

of the place, and move to the spirit of grave medi- 
tation. 

The gondolier is a picturesque rascal for all he 
wears no satin harness, no plumed bonnet, no silken 
tights. His attitude is stately ; he is lithe and sup- 
ple ; all his movements are full of grace. When his 
long canoe, and his fine figure, towering from its 
high perch on the stern, are cut against the evening 
sky, they make a picture that is very novel and 
striking to a foreign eye. 

We sit in the cushioned carriage-body of a cabin » 
with the curtains drawn, and smoke, or read, or 
look out upon the passing boats, the houses, the 
bridges, the people, and enjoy ourselves much more 
than we could in a buggy jolting over our cobble- 
stone pavements at home. This is the gentlest, 
pleasantest locomotion we have ever known. 

But it seems queer — ever so queer — to see a 
boat doing duty as a private carriage. We see busi- 
ness men come to the front door, step into a gon- 
dola, instead of a street car, and go off down town 
to the counting-room. 

We see visiting young ladies stand on the stoop, 
and laugh, and kiss good-bye, and flirt their fans 
and say '* Come soon — now do — you've been just 
as mean as ever you can be — mother's dying to see 
you — and we've moved into the new house, oh, 
such a love of a place ! — so convenient to the post- 
cfiice and the church, and the Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association ; and we do have such fishing, and 



296 The Innocents Abroad 

such carrying on, and siicJi swimming-matches in 
the back yard — Oh, you must come — no distance 
at all, and if you go down through by St. Mark's 
and the Bridge of Sighs, and cut through the alley 
and come up by the church of Santa Maria dei 
Frari, and into the Grand Canal, there isn't a bit of 
current — now do come, Sally Maria — by-bye!" 
and then the little humbug trips down the steps, 
jumps into the gondola, says, under her breath, 
** Disagreeable old thing, I hope she won't!'* 
goes skimming away, round the corner; and the 
other girl slams the street door and says, **Well, 
that infliction's over, anyway, — but I suppose I've 
got to go and see her — tiresome, stuck-up thing!" 
Human nature appears to be just the same, all over 
the world. We see the diffident young man, mild 
of moustache, affluent of hair, indigent of brain, 
elegant of costume, drive up to her father's man- 
sion, tell his hackman to bail out and wait, start 
fearfully up the steps and meet ** the old gentle- 
man " right on the threshold ! — hear him ask what 
street the new British Bank is in — as if that were 
what he came for — and then bounce into his boat 
and skurry away with his coward heart in his boots ! 
— see him come sneaking around the corner again, 
directly, with a crack of the curtain open toward the 
old gentleman's disappearing gondola, and out 
scampers his Susan with a flock of little Italian en- 
dearments fluttering from her lips, and goes to drive 
with him in the watery avenues down toward the Rialto 



The Innocents Abroad 29? 

We see the ladies go out shopping, in the most 
natural way, and flit from street to street and from 
store to store, just in the good old fashion, except 
that they leave the gondola, instead of a private 
carriage, waiting at the curbstone a couple of hours 
for them, — waiting while they make the nice young 
clerks pull down tons and tons of silks and velvets 
and moire antiques and those things ; and then they 
buy a paper of pins and go paddling away to confer 
the rest of their disastrous patronage on some other 
firm. And they always have their purchases sent 
home just in the good old way. Human nature is 
very much the same all over the world ; and it is so 
like my dear native home to see a Venetian lady go 
into a store and buy ten cents' worth of blue ribbon 
and have it sent home in a scow. Ah, it is these 
little touches of nature that move one to tears in 
these far-off foreign lands. 

We see little girls and boys go out in gondolas 
with their nurses, for an airing. We see staid 
families, with prayer book and beads, enter the 
gondola dressed in their Sunday best, and float 
away to church. And at midnight v/e see the 
theater break up and discharge its swarm of hilarious 
youth and beauty ; we hear the cries of the hackman- 
gondoliers, and behold the struggling crowd jump 
aboard, and the black multitude of boats go skim- 
ming down the moonlit avenues; we see them 
separate here and there, and disappear up divergent 
streets ; we hear the faint sounds of laughter and of 



298 The Innocents Abroad 

shouted farewells floating up out of the distance; 
and then, the strange pageant being gone, we have 
lonely stretches of glittering water — of stately 
buildings — of blotting shadows — of weird stone 
faces creeping into the moonlight — of deserted 
bridges — of motionless boats at anchor. And 
over all broods that mysterious stillness, that 
stealthy quiet, that befits so well this old dreaming 
Venice 

We have been pretty much everywhere in our 
gondola. We have bought beads and photographs 
in the stores, and wax matches in the Great Square 
of St, Mark The last remark suggests a digression. 
Everybody goes to this vast square in the evening. 
The military bands play in the center of it and 
countless couples of ladies and gentlemen promenade 
up and down on either side, and platoons of them 
are constantly drifting away toward the old cathe- 
dral, and by the venerable column with the Winged 
Lion of St^ Mark on its top, and out to where the 
boats lie moored; and other platoons are as con- 
stantly arriving from the gondolas and joining the 
great throng. Between the promenaders and the 
sidewalks are seated hundreds and hundreds of peo- 
ple at small tables, smoking and taking granita (a 
first cousin to ice-cream) ; on the sidewalks are 
more employing themselves in the same way. The 
shops in the first floor of the tall rows of buildings that 
wall in three sides of the square are brilliantly lighted, 
the air is filled with music and merry voices, and 



The Innocents Abroad 299 

altogether the scene is as bright and spirited and full 
of cheerfulness as any man could desire. We enjoy 
it thoroughly. Very many of the young women are 
exceedingly pretty and dress with rare good taste. 
We are gradually and laboriously learning the ill- 
manners of staring them unflinchingly in the face — 
not because such conduct is agreeable to us, but 
because it is the custom of the country and they say 
the girls like it. We wish to learn all the curious, 
outlandish ways of all the different countries, so 
that we can ** show off" and astonish people when 
we get home. We wish to excite the envy of our 
untraveled friends with our strange foreign fashions 
which we can't shake off. All our passengers are 
paying strict attention to this thing, with the end in 
view which I have mentioned. The gentle reader 
will never, never know what a consummate ass he 
can become until he goes abroad. I speak now, of 
course, in the supposition that the gentle reader has 
not been abroad, and therefore is not already a 
consummate ass. If the case be otherwise, I beg 
his pardon and extend to him the cordial hand of 
fellowship and call him brother. I shall always 
delight to meet an ass after my own heart when I 
shall have finished my travels. 

On this subject let me remark that there are 
Americans abroad in Italy who have actually for- 
gotten their mother tongue in three months — forgot 
it in France. They cannot even write their address 
in English in a hotel register. I append these evi- 



300 The Innocents Abroad 

deuces, which I copied verbatim from the register o! 
a hotel in a certain ItaHan city : 

** John P. Whitcomb, Btais Unis. 

" William L. Ainsworth, travailleur (he meant traveler, I suppose), 
Btais Ujtis. 

*' George P. Morton et Jils^ d*Amerique. 

" Lloyd B. Williams, et trois amis^ ville de Boston, Amertque, 

*' J. EUsworth Baker, tout de suite de France ^ place de naissance 
Anierique^ destination la Grande Bretagne.^"* 

I love this sort of people. A lady passenger of 
ours tells of a fellow-citizen of hers who spent eight 
weeks in Paris and then returned home and ad- 
dressed his dearest old bosom friend Herbert as Mr. 
**Er-bare!" He apologized, though, and said, 
* 'Pon my soul it is aggravating, but I cahn't help 
it — I have got so used to speaking nothing but 
French, my dear Erbare — damme there it goes 
again ! — got so used to French pronunciation that 
I cahn't get rid of it — it is positively annoying, I 
assure you." This entertaining idiot, whose name 
was Gordon, allowed himself to be hailed three 
times in the street before he paid any attention, and 
then begged a thousand pardons and said he had 
grown so accustomed to hearing himself addressed 
as M'sieu Gor-x-dongy'* with a roll to the r, that he 
had forgotten the legitimate sound of his name ! He 
wore a rose in his buttonhole ; he gave the French 
salutation- — two flips of the hand in front of the 
face ; he called Paris Pairree in ordinary English con- 
versation; he carried envelopes bearing foreign 
postmarks protruding from his breast pocket; he 



The Innocents Abroad 301 

cultivated a moustache and imperial, and did what 
else he could to suggest to the beholder his pet 
fancy that he resembled Louis Napoleon — and in a 
spirit of thankfulness which is entirely unaccount- 
able, considering the slim foundation there was for 
it, he praised his Maker that he was as he was, and 
went on enjoying his little life just the same as if he 
really /lad been deliberately designed and erected by 
the great Architect of the Universe. 

Think of our Whitcombs and our Ainsworths and 
our Williamses writing themselves down in dilapi- 
dated French in a foreign hotel register ! We laugh 
at Englishmen, when we are at home, for sticking 
so sturdily to their national ways and customs, but 
we look back upon it from abroad very forgivingly. 
It is not pleasant to see an American thrusting his 
nationality forward obtnisively in a foreign land, but 
oh, it is pitiable to see him making of himself a 
thing that is neither male nor female, neither fish, 
flesh, nor fowl — a poor, miserable, hermaphrodite 
Frenchman ! 

Among a long list of churches, art galleries, and 
such things, visited by us in Venice, I shall mention 
only one — the Church of Santa Maria dei Frari. 
It is about five hundred years old, I believe, and 
stands on tv/elve hundred' thousand piles. In it lie 
the body of Canova and the heart of Titian, under 
' magnificent monuments. Titian died at the age of 
almost one hundred years. A plague which swept 
away fifty thousand lives was raging at the time, and 



J02 The Innocents Abroad 

there is notable evidence of the reverence in which 
the great painter was held, in the fact that to him 
alone the state permitted a public funeral in all that 
season of terror and death. 

In this church, also, is a monument to the doge 
Foscari, whose name a once resident of Venice, 
Lord Byron, has made permanently famous. 

The monument to the doge Giovanni Pesaro, in 
this church, is a curiosity in the way of mortuary 
adornment. It is eighty feet high and is fronted 
like some fantastic pagan temple. Against it stand 
four colossal Nubians, as black as night, dressed in 
white marble garments. The black legs are bare, 
and through rents in sleeves and breeches, the skin, 
of shiny black marble, shows. The artist was as 
ingenious as his funeral designs were absurd. There 
are two bronze skeletons bearing scrolls, and two 
great dragons uphold the sarcophagus. On high, 
amid all this grotesqueness, sits the departed doge. 

In the conventual buildings attached to this church 
are the state archives of Venice. We did not see 
them, but they are said to number millions of docu- 
ments. **They are the records of centuries of the 
most watchful, observant, and suspicious government 
that ever existed — in which everything was written 
down and nothing spoken out.*' They fill nearly 
three hundred rooms. Among them are manuscripts 
from the archives of nearly two thousand families, 
monasteries, and convents. The secret history of 
Venice for a thousand years is here — its plots, its 



The Innocents Abroad 303 

hidden trials, its assassinations, its commissions ol 
hireling spies and masked bravoes — food, ready to 
hand, for a world of dark and mysterious romances. 

Yes, I think we have seen all of Venice. We 
have seen, in these old churches, a profusion of 
costly and elaborate sepulchre ornamentation such 
as we never dreamt of before. We have stood in 
the dim religious light of these hoary sanctuaries, in 
the midst of long ranks of dusty monuments and 
effigies of the great dead of Venice, until we seemed 
drifting back, back, back, into the solemn past, and 
looking upon the scenes and mingling with the peo- 
ples of a remote antiquity. We have been in a 
half- waking sort of dream all the time. I do not 
know how else to describe the feeling, A part of 
our being has remained still in the nineteenth cen- 
tury, while another part of it has seemed in some 
unaccountable way walking among the phantoms of 
the tenth. 

We have seen famous pictures until our eyes are 
weary with looking at them and refuse to find inter- 
est in them any longer. And what wonder, when 
there are twelve hundred pictures by Palma the 
Younger in Venice and fifteen hundred by Tinto- 
retto? And behold, there are Titians and the works 
of other artists in proportion. We have seen 
Titian's celebrated Cain and Abel, his David and 
Goliah, his Abraham's Sacrifice, We have seen 
Tintoretto's monster picture, which is seventy-four 
feet long and I do not know how many feet high, 



3C4 The Innocents Abroad 

and thought it a very commodious picture. We 
have seen pictures of martyrs enough, and saints 
enough, to regenerate the world. I ought not to 
confess it, but still, since one has no opportunity in 
America to acquire a critical judgment in art, and 
since I could not hope to become educated in it in 
Europe in a few short weeks, I may therefore as 
well acknowledge with such apologies as may be 
due, that to me it seemed that when I had seen one 
of these martyrs I had seen them all. They all have 
a marked family resemblance to each other, they 
dress alike, in coarse monkish robes and sandalsj 
they are all bald-headed, they all stand in about 
the same attitude, and without exception they are 
gazing heavenward with countenances which the 
Ainsworths, the Mortons, and the Williamses, et fils, 
inform me are full of ** expression." To me there 
is nothing tangible about these imaginary portraits, 
nothing that I can grasp and take a living interest 
in. If great Titian had only been gifted with 
prophecy, and had skipped a martyr, and gone 
over to England and painted a portrait of Shake- 
speare, even as a youth, which we could all have 
confidence in now, the world down to the latest 
generations would have forgiven him the lost martyr 
in the rescued seer. I think posterity could have 
spared one more martyr for the sake of a great his- 
torical picture of Titian*s time and painted by his 
brush — such as Columbus returning in chains from 
the discovery of a Vvorld, for instance The old 



The Innocents Abroad 30!j 

masters did paint some Venetian historical pictures, 
and these we did not tire of looking at, notwithstand- 
ing representations of the formal introduction of 
defunct Doges to the Virgin Mary in regions beyond 
the clouds clashed rather harshly with the proprieties, 
it seemed to us. 

But, humble as we are, and unpretending, in the 
matter of art, our researches among the painted 
monks and martyrs have not been wholly in vain. 
We have striven hard to learn. We have had some 
success. We have mastered some things, possibly 
of trifling import in the eyes of the learned, but to 
us they give pleasure, and we take as much pride in 
our little acquirements as do others who have learned 
far more, and we love to display them full as well. 
When we see a monk going about with a lion and 
looking tranquilly up to heaven, we know that that 
is St. Mark. When we see a monk with a book 
and a pen, looking tranquilly up to heaven, trying 
to think of a word, we know that that is St. Matthew„ 
When we see a monk sitting on a rock, looking tran- 
quilly up to heaven, with a human skull beside him, 
and without other baggage, we know that that is St. 
Jerome. Because we know that he always went 
flying light in the matter of baggage. When we see 
a party looking tranquilly up to heaven, unconscious 
that his body is shot through and through with 
arrows, we know that that is St. Sebastian. When 
we see other monks looking tranquilly up to heaven ^ 
but having no trademark, we always ask who those 
20* 



306 The Innocents Abroad 

parties are. We do this because we humbly wish to 
learn. We have seen thirteen thousand St. Jeromes, 
and twenty-two thousand St. Marks, and sixteen thou- 
sand St. Matthews, and sixty thousand St. Sebas- 
tians, and four millions of assorted monks, undesig- 
nated, and we feel encouraged to believe that when 
we have seen some more of these various pictures, 
and had a larger experience, we shall begin to take 
an absorbing interest in them like our cultivated 
countrymen from Ameriqiie, 

Now it does give me real pain to speak in this 
almost unappreciative way of the old masters and 
their martyrs, because good friends of mine in the 
ship — friends who do thoroughly and conscientiously 
appreciate them and are in every way conipetent to 
discriminate between good pictures and inferior 
ones — have urged me for my own sake not to make 
public the fact that I lack this appreciation and this 
critical discrimination myself. I believe that what I 
have written and may still write about pictures will 
give them pain, and I am honestly sorry for it. I 
even promised that I would hide my uncouth senti- 
ments in my own breast. But alas ! I never could 
keep a promise. I do not blame myself for this 
weakness, because the fault must lie in my physical 
organization. It is likely that such a very liberal 
amount of space was given to the organ which 
enables me to make promises, that the organ which 
should enable me to keep them was crowded out. 
But I grieve not. I like no half-way things c I had 



The Innocents Abroad 307 

rather have one faculty nobly developed than two 
faculties of mere ordinary capacity. I certainly 
meant to keep that promise, but I find I cannot do 
it. It is impossible to travel through Italy without 
speaking of pictures, and can I see them through 
others' eyes? 

If I did not so delight in the grand pictures that 
are spread before me every day of my life by that 
monarch of all the old masters, Nature, I should 
come to believe, sometimes, that I had in me no 
appreciation of the beautiful, whatsoever. 

It seems to me that whenever I glory to think that 
for once I have discovered an ancient painting that 
is beautiful and worthy of all praise, the pleasure it 
gives me is an infallible proof that it is not a beauti- 
ful picture and not in any wise worthy of commenda- 
tion. This very thing has occurred more times than 
I can mention, in Venice. In every single instance 
the guide has crushed out my swelling enthusiasm 
with the remark: 

'* It is nothing — it is of the Renaissance,** 

I did not know what in the mischief the Renais- 
sance was, and so always I had to simply say : 

•* Ah! so it is — I had not observed it before.** 

I could not bear to be ignorant before a cultivated 
negro, the offspring of a South Carolina slave. But 
it occurred too often for even my self-complacency, 
did that exasperating ' * It is nothing — it is of the 
Renaissance. ' ' I said at last : 

** Who is this Renaissance? Where did he come 



308 The Innocents Abroad 

from? Who gave him permission to cram the 
Republic with his execrable daubs?" 

We learned, then, that Renaissance was not a 
man; that renaissance was a term used to signify 
what was at best but an imperfect rejuvenation of 
art. The guide said that after Titian's time and the 
time of the other great names we had grown so 
familiar with, high art declined; then it partially 
rose again — an inferior sort of painters sprang up, 
and these shabby pictures were the work of their 
hands. Then I said, in my heat, that I ** wished to 
goodness high art had declined five hundred years 
sooner." The Renaissance pictures suit me very 
well, though sooth to say its school were too much 
given to painting real men and did not indulge 
enough in martyrs. 

The guide I have spoken of is the only one we 
have had yet who knew anything. He was born in 
South Carolina, of slave parents. They came to 
Venice while he was an infant. He has grown up 
here. He is well educated. He reads, writes, and 
speaks English^ Italian, Spanish, and French, with 
perfect facility; is a worshiper of art and thor- 
oughly conversant with it; knows the history of 
Venice by heart and never tires of talking of her 
illustrious career. He dresses better than any of us, 
I think, and is daintily polite. Negroes are deemed 
as good as white people, in Venice, and so this man 
feels no desire to go back to his native land. His 
judgment is correct. 



The Innocents Abroad 309 

I have had another shave. I was writing in our 
front room this afternoon and trying hard to keep 
my attention on my work and refrain from looking 
out upon the canal. I was resisting the soft in- 
fluences of the climate as well as I could, and 
endeavoring to overcome the desire to be indolent 
and happy. The boys sent for a barber. They 
asked me if I would be shaved. I reminded them 
of my tortures in Genoa, Milan, Como; of my 
declaration that I would suffer no more on Italian 
soil. I said: ** Not any for me, if you please.'* 

I wrote on. The barber began on the doctor. I 
heard him say: 

*' Dan, this is the easiest shave I have had since 
we left the ship.'* 

He said again, presently: 

**Why, Dan, a man could go to sleep with this 
man shaving him.*' 

Dan took the chair. Then he said : 

** Why, this is Titian. This is one of the old 
masters." 

I wrote on. Directly Dan said : 

** Doctor, it is perfect luxury. The ship's barber 
isn't anything to him.*' 

My rough beard was distressing me beyond meas- 
ure. The barber was rolling up his apparatus. 
The temptation was too strong. I said : 

'* Hold on, please. Shave me also.'* 

I sat down in the chair and closed my eyes. The 
barber soaped my face, and then took his razor and 



L^ 



}10 The Innocents Abroad 

gave me a rake that well nigh threw me into convul« 
sions. I jumped out of the chair: Dan and the 
doctor were both wiping blood off their faces and 
laughing. 

I said it was a mean, disgraceful fraud. 

They said that the misery of this shave had gone 
so far beyond anything they had ever experienced 
before, that they could not bear the idea of losing 
such a chance of hearing a cordial opinion from me 
on the subject. 

It was shameful. But there was no help for it. 
The skinning was begun and had to be finished. 
The tears flowed with every rake, and so did the 
fervent execrations. The barber grew confused, 
and brought blood every time. I think the boys 
enjoyed it better than anything they have seen or 
heard since they left home. 

We have seen the Campanile, and Byron's house, 
and Balbi's the geographer, and the palaces of all 
the ancient dukes and doges of Venice, and we have 
seen their effeminate descendants airing their nobility 
in fashionable French attire in the Grand Square of 
St. Mark, and eating ices and drinking cheap wines, 
instead of wearing gallant coats of mail and destroy- 
ing fleets and armies as their great ancestors did in 
the days of Venetian glory. We have seen no 
bravoes with poisoned stilettoes, no masks, no wild 
carnival; but we have seen the ancient pride of 
Venice, the grim Bronze Horses that figure in a 
thousand legends. Venice may well cherish them, 



The Innocents Abroad 3H 

for they are the only horses she ever had. It is 
said there are hundreds of people in this curious 
city who never have seen a living horse in their lives. 
It is entirely true, no doubt. 

And so, having satisfied ourselves, we depart to- 
morrow, and leave the venerable Queen of the Re- 
publics to summon her vanished ships, and marshal 
her shadowy armies, and know again in dreams the 
pride of her old renown 



C5 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

SOME of the Quaker City^s passengers had ar- 
rived in Venice from Switzerland and other 
lands before we left there, and others were expected 
every day. We heard of no casualties among them, 
and no sickness. 

We were a little fatigued with sightseeing, and so 
we rattled through a good deal of country by rail 
without caring to stop. I took few notes. I find 
no mention of Bologna in my memorandum book, 
except that we arrived there in good season, but 
saw none of the sausages for which the place is so 
justly celebrated. 

Pistoia awoke but a passing interest. 

Florence pleased us for a while. I think we ap- 
preciated the great figure of David in the grand 
square, and the sculptured group they call the Rape 
of the Sabines. We wandered through the endless 
collections of paintings and statues of the Pitti and 
Uffizzi galleries, of course. I make that statement 
in self-defense; there let it stop. I could not rest 
under the imputation that I visited Florence and did 
not traverse its weary miles of picture galleries. We 



The Innocents Abroad 313 

tried indolently to recollect something about the 
Guelphs and Ghibellnes and the other historical cut- 
throats whose quarrels and assassinations make up 
so large a share of Florentine history, but the sub- 
ject was not attractive. We had been robbed of all 
the fine mountain scenery on our httle journey by a 
system of railroading that had three miles of tunnel 
to a hundred yards of daylight, and we were not 
inclined to be sociable with Florence. We had seen 
the spot, outside the city somewhere, where these 
people had allowed the bones of Galileo to rest in 
unconsecrated ground for an age because his great 
discovery that the world turned around was regarded 
as a damning heresy by the church ; and we know 
that long after the world had accepted his theory 
and raised his name high in the list of its great 
men, they had still let him rot there. That we had 
lived to see his dust in honored sepulture in the 
Church of Santa Croce we owed to a society of 
literatty and not to Florence or her rulers. We saw 
Dante's tomb in that church, also, but we were glad 
to know that his body was not in it ; that the un- 
grateful city that had exiled him and persecuted him 
would give much to have it there, but need not hope 
to ever secure that high honor to herself. Medicis 
are good enough for Florence. Let her plant 
Medicis and build grand monuments over them to 
testify how gratefully she was wont to lick the hand 
that scourged her. 

Magnanimous Florence \ Her jewelry marts are 



514 The Innocents Abroad 

filled with artists in mosaic. Florentine mosaics 
are the choicest in all the world. Florence loves to 
have that said. Florence is proud of it. Florence 
would foster this specialty of hers. She is grateful 
to the artists that bring to her this high credit and 
fill her coffers with foreign money, and so she en- 
courages them with pensions. With pensions! 
Think of the lavishness of it. She knows that peo- 
ple who piece together the beautiful trifles die early, 
because the labor is so confining, and so exhausting 
to hand and brain, and so she has decreed that all 
these people who reach the age of sixty shall have 
a pension after that ! I have not heard that any of 
them have called for their dividends yet One man 
did fight along till he was sixty, and started after his 
pension, but it appeared that there had been a mis- 
take of a year in his family record, and so he gave 
it up and died These artists will take particles of 
stone or glass no larger than a mustard seed, and 
piece them together on a sleeve-button or a shirt- 
stud, so smoothly and with such nice adjustment of 
the delicate shades of color the pieces bear, as to 
form a pigmy rose with stem, thorn, leaves^ petals 
complete, and all as softly and as truthfully tinted 
as though Nature had builded it herself^ They will 
counterfeit a fly, or a high-toned bug, or the ruined 
Coliseum, within the cramped circle of a breastpin, 
and do it so deftly and so neatly that any man might 
think a master painted it. 

I saw a little table in the great mosaic school in 



The Innocents Abroad 3IS 

Florence — a little trifle of a center-table — whose 
top was made of some sort of precious polished 
stone, and in the stone was inlaid the figure of a 
flute, with bell-mouth and a mazy complication of 
keys. No painting in the world could have been 
softer or richer; no shading out of one tint into 
another could have been more perfect; no work of 
art of any kind could have been more faultless than 
this flute, and yet to count the multitude of little 
fragments of stone of which they swore it was formed 
would bankrupt any man's arithmetic ! I do not 
think one could have seen where two particles joined 
each other with eyes of ordinary shrewdness. Cer- 
tainly we could detect no such blemish. This table 
top cost the labor of one man for ten long years, so 
they said, and it was for sale for thirty-five thousand 
dollars. 

We went to the Church of Santa Croce, from time 
to time, in Florence, to weep over the tombs of 
Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Machiavelli (I sup- 
pose they are buried there, but it may be that they 
reside elsewhere and rent their tombs to other 
parties — such being the fashion in Italy) , and be- 
tween times we used to go and stand on the bridges 
and admire the Arno. It is popular to admire the 
Arno. It is a great historical creek with four feet 
in the channel and some scows floating around. It 
would be a very plausible river if they would pump 
some water into it. They all call it a river, and 
they honestly think It is a river, do these dark and 



316 The Innocents Abroad 

bloody Florentines. They even help out the delu- 
sion by building bridges over it. I do not see why 
they are too good to wade. 

How the fatigues and annoyances of travel fill one 
with bitter prejudices sometimes ! I might enter 
Florence under happier auspices a month hence and 
find it all beautiful, all attractive. But I do not 
care to think of it now, at all, nor of its roomy 
shops filled to the ceiling with snowy marble and 
alabaster copies of all the celebrated sculptures in 
Europe — copies so enchanting to the eye that I 
wonder how they can really be shaped like the dingy 
petrified nightmares they are the portraits of. I 
got lost in Florence at nine o'clock, one night, and 
stayed lost in that labyrinth of narrow streets and 
long rows of vast buildings that look all alike, until 
toward three o'clock in the morning. It was a 
pleasant night and at first there were a good many 
people abroad, and there were cheerful lights about. 
Later, I grew accustomed to prowling about mys- 
terious drifts and tunnels and astonishing and inter- 
esting myself with com ng around corners expecting 
to find the hotel staring me in the face, and not find- 
ing it doing anything of the kind. Later still, I felt 
tired. I soon felt remarkably tired. But there was 
no one abroad, now — not even a policeman. I 
walked till I was out of all patience, and very hot 
and thirsty. At last, somewhere after one o'clock, 
I came unexpectedly to one of the city gates. I 
knew then that I was very far from the hotel The 



The Innocents Abroad 3I7 

soldiers thought I wanted to leave the city, and they 
sprang up and barred the way with their muskets. 
I said : 

•• Hotel d'Europe!'' 

It was all the Italian I knew, and I was not certain 
whether that was Italian or French. The soldiers 
looked stupidly at each other and at me, and shook 
their heads and took me into custody. I said I 
wanted to go home. They did not understand me. 
They took me into the guard-house and searched 
me, but they found no sedition on me. They found 
a small piece of soap (we carry soap with us now), 
and I made them a present of it, seeing that they 
regarded it as a curiosity. I continued to say Hotel 
d' Europe, and they continued to shake their heads, 
until at last a young soldier nodding in the corner 
roused up and said something. He said ne knew 
where the hotel was, I suppose, for the officer of 
the guard sent him away with me. We walked 
a hundred or a hundred and fifty miles, it ap- 
peared to me, and then he got lost. He turned 
this way and that, and finally gave it up and signi- 
fied that he was going to spend the remainder of 
the morning trying to find the city gate again. At 
that moment it struck me that there was something 
familiar about the house over the way. It was the 
hotel ! 

It was a happy thing for me that there happened 
to be a soldier there that knew even as much as he 
did ; for they say that the policy of the government 



318 mhe innocents Abroad 

is to change the soldiery from one place to another 
constantly and from country to city, so that they 
cannot become acquainted with the people and grow 
lax in their duties and enter into plots and con- 
spiracies with friends. My experiences of Florence 
were chiefly unpleasant. I will change the subject. 
At Pisa we climbed up to the top of the strangest 
structure the world has any knowledge of — the 
Leaning Tower. As every one knows, it is in the 
neighborhood of one hundred and eighty feet high 
■ — and I beg to observe that one hundred and eighty 
feet reach to about the height of four ordinary 
three-story buildings piled one on top of the other, 
and is a very considerable altitude for a tower of 
uniform thickness to aspire to, even when it stands 
upright — yet this one leans more than thirteen feet 
out of the perpendicular. It is seven hundred years 
old, but neither history nor tradition say whether it 
was built as it is, purposely, or whether one of its 
sides has settled. There is no record that it ever 
stood straight up. It is built of marble. It is an 
airy and a beautiful structure, and each of its eight 
stories is encircled by fluted columns, some of 
marble and some of granite, with Corinthian capitals 
that were handsome when they were new. It is a 
bell tower, and in its top hangs a chime of ancient 
bells. The winding staircase within is dark, but one 
always knows which side of the tower he is on be- 
cause of his naturally gravitating from one side to 
the other of the staircase with the rise or dip of the 



The innocents Abroad 3 19 

^ower. Some of the stone steps are foot-woni only 
on one end ; others only on the other end ; others 
only in the middle. To look down into the tower 
from the top is like looking down into a tilted well . 
A rope that hangs from the center of the top 
touches the wall before it reaches the bottom. 
Standing on the summit, one does not feel altogether 
comfortable when he looks down from the high 
side ; but to crawl on your breast to the verge on 
the lower side and try to stretch your neck out far 
enough to see the base of the tower, makes your 
flesh creep, and convinces you for a single moment, 
In spite of all your philosophy, that the building is 
falling. You handle yourself very carefully, all the 
time, under the silly impression that if it is not fall- 
ing your trifling weight will start it unless you are 
particular not to ** bear down *' on it. 

The Duomo, close at hand, is one of the finest 
cathedrals in Europe. It is eight hundred years 
old. Its grandeur has outhved the high commercial 
prosperity and the political importance that made it 
a necessity, or rather a possibihty. Surrounded by 
poverty, decay, and ruin, it conveys to us a more 
tangible impression of the former greatness of Pisa 
than books could give us. 

The Baptistery, which is a few years older than 
the Leaning Tower, is a stately rotunda of huge 
dimensions, and was a costly structurCc In it hangs 
the lamp whose measured swing suggested to Galileo 
the pendulum. It looked an insignificant thing: tc 



320 The Innocents Abtoaa 

have conferred upon the world of science and 
mechanics such a mighty extension of their domin- 
ions as it has. Pondering, in its suggestive pres- 
ence, I seemed to see a crazy universe of swinging 
disks, the toiling children of this sedate parent. He 
appeared to have an intelligent expression about him 
of knowing that he was not a lamp at all ; that he 
was a Pendulum; a pendulum disguised, for pro- 
digious and inscrutable purposes of his own deep 
devising, and not a common pendulum either, but 
the old original patriarchal Pendulum — the Abraham 
Pendulum of the world. 

This Baptistery is endowed with the most pleasing 
echo of all the echoes we have read of. The guide 
sounded two sonorous notes, about half an octave 
apart ; the echo answered with the most enchanting, 
the most m.elodious, the richest blending of sweet 
sounds that one can imagine. It was like a long- 
drawn chord of a church organ, infinitely softened 
by distance. I may be extravagant in this matter, 
but if this be the case my ear is to blame — not my 
pen. I am describing a memory — and one that will 
remain long with me. 

The peculiar devotional spirit of the olden time, 
which placed a higher confidence in outward forms 
of worship than in the watchful guarding of the 
heart against sinful thoughts and the hands against 
sinful deeds, and which believed in the protecting 
virtues of inanimate objects made holy by contact 
with holy things, is illustrated in a striking manner 



The Innocents Abroad 32 1 

in one of the cemeteries of Pisa. The tombs are 
set in soil brought in ships from the Holy Land ages 
ago. To be buried in such ground was regarded by 
the ancient Pisans as being more potent for salvation 
than many masses purchased of the church and the 
vowing of many candles to the Virgin, 

Pisa is believed to be about three thousand years 
old. It was one of the twelve great cities of ancient 
Etruria, that commonwealth which has left so many 
monuments in testimony of its extraordinary ad- 
vancement, and so little history of itself that is 
tangible and comprehensible. A Pisan antiquarian 
gave me an ancient tear-jug which he averred was 
full four thousand years old. It was found among 
the ruins of one of the oldest of the Etruscan cities. 
He said it came from a tomb, and was used by 
some bereaved family in that remote age when even 
the Pyramids of Egypt were young, Damascus a 
village, Abraham a prattling infant and ancient Troy 
not yet dreamt of, to receive the tears wept for 
some lost idol of a household. It spoke to us in a 
language of its own ; and with a pathos more tender 
than any words might bring, its mute eloquence 
swept down the long roll of the centuries with its 
tale of a vacant chair, a familiar footstep missed from 
the threshold, a pleasant voice gone from the chorus, 
a vanished form ! — a tale which is always so new to 
us, so startling, so terrible, so benumbing to the 
senses, and behold how threadbare and old it is! 
No shrewdly-worded history could have brought the 
2U 



322 The Innocents Abroad 

myths and shadows of that old dreamy age before 
us clothed with human flesh and warmed with 
human sympathies so vividly as did this poor little 
unsentient vessel of pottery, 

Pisa was a republic in the Middle Ages, with a 
government of her own, armies and navies of her 
own, and a great commerce. She was a warlike 
power, and inscribed upon her banners many a 
brilliant fight with Genoese and Turks. It is said 
that the city once numbered a population of four 
hundred thousand ; but her scepter has passed from 
her grasp now, her ships apd her armies are gone, 
her commerce is dead. Her battle-flags bear the 
mold and the dust of centuries, her marts are de- 
serted, she has shrunken far within her crumbling 
walls, and her great population has diminished to 
twenty thousand souls She has but one thing left 
to boast of, and that is not much; viz., she is the 
second city of Tuscany, 

We reached Leghorn in time to see all we wished 
to see of it long before the city gates were closed 
for the evening, and then came on board the ship. 

We felt as though we had been away from home 
an age. We never entirely appreciated, before, 
what a very pleasant den our state-room is; nor 
how jolly it is to sit at dinner in one*s own seat in 
one's own cabin, and hold familiar conversation 
with friends in one's own language. Oh, the rare 
happiness of comprehending every single word that 
is said, and knowing that every word one says in 



The Innocents Abroad 323 

return will be understood as well I We would talk 
ourselves to death now, only there are only about 
ten passengers out of the sixty-five to talk to. The 
others are wandering, we hardly know where. We 
shall not go ashore in Leghorn. We are surfeited 
with Italian cities for the present, and much prefer 
to walk the familiar quarter-deck and view this one 
from a distance. 

The stupid magnates of this Leghorn government 
cannot understand that so large a steamer as ours 
could cross the broad Atlantic with no other purpose 
than to indulge a party of ladies and gentlemen in a 
pleasure excursion. It looks too improbable. It is 
suspicious, they think. Something more important 
must be hidden behind it all. They cannot under- 
stand it, and they scorn the evidence of the ship's 
papers. They have decided at last that we are a 
battalion of incendiary, blood-thirsty Garibaldians in 
disguise ! And in all seriousness they have set a 
gunboat to watch the vessel night and day, with 
orders to close down on any revolutionary movement 
in a twinkling! Police-boats are on patrol duty 
about us all the time, and it is as much as a sailor's 
liberty is worth to show himself in a red shirt. 
These policemen follow the executive officer's boat 
from shore to ship and from ship to shore, and 
watch his dark maneuvers with a vigilant eye. They 
will arrest him yet unless he assumes an expression 
of countenance that shall have less of carnage, insur- 
rection, and sedition in it, A visit paid in a friendly 



324 The Innocents Abroad 

way to General Garibaldi yesterday (by cordial 
invitation) by some of our passengers, has gone far 
to confirm the dread suspicions the government har- 
bors toward us. It is thought the friendly visit was 
only the cloak of a bloody conspiracy. These peo- 
ple draw near and watch us when we bathe in the 
sea from the ship's side. Do they think we are 
communing with a reserve force of rascals at the 
bottom ? 

It is said that we shall probably be quarantined at 
Naples. Two or three of us prefer not to run this 
risk. Therefore, when we are rested, we propose 
to go in a French steamer to Civita Vecchia, and 
from thence to Rome, and by rail to Naples. They 
do not quarantine the cars, no matter where they 
got their passengers from. 



CHAPTER XXV 

THERE are a good many things about this Italy 
which I do not understand — and more espe- 
cially I cannot understand how a bankrupt government 
can have such palatial railroad depots and such mar- 
vels of turnpikes. Why, these latter are as hard as 
adamant, as straight as a line, as smooth as a floor, 
and as white as snow. When it is too dark to see 
any other object, one can still see the white turnpikes 
of France and Italy; and they are clean enough to 
eat from, without a table-cloth. And yet no tolls 
are charged. 

As for the railways — we have none like them. 
The cars slide as smoothly along as if they were on 
runners. The depots are vast palaces of cut marble, 
with stately colonnades of the same royal stone 
traversing them from end to end, and with ample 
walls and ceilings richly decorated with frescoes. 
The lofty gateways are graced with statues, and the 
broad floors are all laid in polished flags of marble. 

These things win me more than Italy's hundred 
galleries of priceless art treasures, because I can 
understand the one and am not competent to appre- 

(325) 



326 The Innocents Abroad 

ciate the other. In the turnpikes, the railways, the 
depots, and the new boulevards of uniform houses 
in Florence and other cities here, I see the genius of 
Louis Napoleon, or rather, I see the works of that 
statesman imitated. But Louis has taken care that 
in France there shall be a foundation for these im- 
provements — money. He has always the where- 
withal to back up his projects; they strengthen 
France and never weaken her. Her material pros- 
perity is genuine. But here the case is different. 
This country is bankrupt. There is no real founda- 
tion for these great works. The prosperity they 
would seem to indicate is a pretense. There is no 
money in the treasury, and so they enfeeble her 
instead of strengthening. Italy has achieved the 
dearest wish of her heart and become an independent 
state — and in so doing she has drawn an elephant 
in the political lottery. She has nothing to feed it 
on. Inexperienced in government, she plunged into 
all manner of useless expenditure, and swamped her 
treasury almost in a day. She squandered millions 
of francs on a navy which she did not need, and the 
first time she took her new toy into action she got 
it knocked higher than Gilderoy's kite — to use the 
language of the Pilgrims. 

But it is an ill- wind that blows nobody good. A 
year ago, when Italy saw utter ruin staring her in 
the face and her greenbacks hardly worth the paper 
they were printed on, her Parliament ventured upon 
a coup de mam that would have appalled the stoutest 



The Innocents Abroad 327 

of her statesmen under less desperate circumstances. 
They, in a manner, confiscated the domains of the 
Church ! This in priest-ridden Italy ! This in a 
land which has groped in the midnight of priestly 
superstition for sixteen hundred years ! It was a 
rare good fortune for Italy, the stress of weather 
that drove her to break from this prison-house. 

They do not call it confiscatiiig the church prop- 
erty. That would sound too harshly yet. But it 
amounts to that. There are thousands of churches 
in Italy, each with untold millions of treasures stored 
away in its closets, and each with its battalion of 
priests to be supported. And then there are the 
estates of the Church — league on league of the 
richest lands and the noblest forests in all Italy — all 
yielding immense revenues to the Church, and none 
paying a cent in taxes to the state. In some great 
districts the Church owns all the property — lands, 
water-courses, woods, mills and factories. They buy, 
they sell, they manufacture, and since they pay no 
taxes, who can hope to compete with them ! 

Well, the government has seized all this in effect, 
and will yet seize it in rigid and unpoetical reality^ 
no doubt. Something must be done to feed a 
starving treasury, and there is no other resource in 
all Italy — none but the riches of the Church. So the 
government intends to take to itself a great portion 
of the revenues arising from priestly farms, factories, 
etc., and also intends to take possession of the 
churches and carry them on, after its own fashion 



328 The Innocents Abroad 

and upon its own responsibility. In a few instances 
it will leave the establishments of great pet churches 
undisturbed, but in all others only a handful of 
priests will be retained to preach and pray, a few will 
be pensioned, and the balance turned adrift. 

Pray glance at some of these churches and their 
embellishments, and see whether the government is 
doing a righteous thing or not. In Venice, to-day, 
a city of a hundred thousand inhabitants, there are 
twelve hundred priests. Heaven only knows how 
many there were before the Parliament reduced their 
numbers. There was the great Jesuit Church. 
Under the old regime it required sixty priests to 
engineer it — the government does it with five now, 
and the others are discharged from service. All 
about that church wretchedness and poverty abound. 
At its door a dozen hats and bonnets were doffed to 
us, as many heads were humbly bowed, and as many 
hands extended, appealing for pennies — appealing 
with foreign words we could not understand, but 
appealing mutely, with sad eyes, and sunken cheeks, 
and ragged raiment, that no words were needed to 
translate. Then we passed within the great doors, 
and It seemed that the riches of the world were 
before us ! Huge columns carved out of single 
masses of marble, and inlaid from top to bottom 
with a hundred intricate figures wrought in costly 
verde antique; pulpits of the same rich materials, 
whose draperies hung down in many a pictured fold, 
the stony fabric counterfeiting the delicate work of 



The Innocents Abroad 329 

the loom; the grand altar brlHiant with polished 
facings and balustrades of oriental agate, jasper, 
verde antique, and other precious stones, whose 
names, even, we seldom hear — and slabs of price- 
less lapis lazuli lavished everywhere as recklessly as 
if the church had owned a quarry of it. In the 
midst of all this magnificence, the solid gold and 
silver furniture of the altar seemed cheap and trivial. 
Even the floors and ceilings cost a princely fortune. 

Now, where is the use of allowing all those riches 
to lie idle, while half of that community hardly 
know, from day to day, how they are going to keep 
body and soul together? And, where is the wisdom 
in permitting hundreds upon hundreds of millions of 
francs to be locked up in the useless trumpery of 
churches all over Italy, and the people ground to 
death with taxation to uphold a perishing govern- 
ment? 

As far as I can see, Italy, for fifteen hundred 
years, has turned all her energies, all her finances, 
and all her industry to the building up of a vast 
array of wonderful church edifices, and starving half 
her citizens to accomplish it. She is to-day one vast 
museum of magnificence and misery. All the 
churches in an ordinary American city put together 
could hardly buy the jeweled frippery in one of her 
hundred cathedrals. And for every beggar in 
America, Italy can show a hundred — and rags and 
vermin to match. It is the wretchedest, princeliesl 
land on earth. 



330 The Innocents Abroad 

Look at the grand Duomo of Florence — avast 
pile that has been sapping the purses of her citizens 
for five hundred years, And is not nearly finished 
yet. Like all other men, I fell down and wor- 
shiped it, but when the filthy beggars swarmed 
around me the contrast was too striking, too sug- 
gestive, and I said, ** Oh, sons of classic Italy, is 
the spirit of enterprise, of self-reliance, of noble 
endeavor, utterly dead within ye? Curse your 
indolent worthlessness, why don't you rob your 
church?" 

Three hundred happy, comfortable priests are 
employed in that cathedral. 

And now that my temper is up, I may as well go 
on and abuse everybody I can think of. They have 
a grand mausol ium in Florence, which they built to 
bury our Lord and Saviour and the Medici family 
in It sounds blasphemous, but it is true, and here 
they act blasphemy. The dead and damned Medicis 
who cruelly tyrannized over Florence and were her 
curse for over two hundred years, are salted away in 
a circle of costly vaults, and in their midst the Holy 
Sepulchre was to have been set up. The expedition 
sent to Jerusalem to seize it got into trouble and 
could not accomplish the burglary, and so the center 
of the mausoleum is vacant now. They say the 
entire mausoleum was intended for the Holy Sepul- 
chre, and was only turned into a family burying 
place after the Jerusalem expedition failed — but 
you will excuse me- Some of those Medicis would 



The Innocents Abroad 531 

have smuggled themselves in sure. What they had 
not the effrontery to do, was not worth doing. 
Why, they had their trivial, forgotten exploits on 
land and sea pictured out in grand frescoes (as did 
also the ancient doges of Venice) with the Saviour 
and the Virgin throwing bouquets to them out of the 
clouds, and the Deity himself applauding from his 
throne in Heaven! And who painted these things? 
Why, Titian, Tintoretto, Paul Veronese, Raphael — 
none other than the world's idols, the **old mas- 
ters/' 

Andrea del Sarto glorified his princes in pictures 
that must save them forever from the oblivion they 
merited, and they let him starve. Served him right. 
Raphael pictured such infernal villains as Catherine 
and Marie de Medici seated in heaven and con- 
versing familiarly with the Virgin Mary and the 
angels (to say nothing of higher personages), and 
yet my friends abuse me because I am a little preju- 
diced against the old masters — because I fail some- 
times to see the beauty that is in their productions^ 
I cannot help but see it, now and then, but I keep 
on protesting against the groveling spirit that could 
persuade those masters to prostitute their noble 
talents to the adulation of such monsters as the 
French, Venetian, and Florentine princes of two and 
three hundred years ago, all the same. 

I am told that the old masters had to do these 
shameful things for bread, the princes and potentates 
being the only patrons of art. If a grandly gifted 



332 The Innocents Abroad 

man may drag his pride and his manhood in the dirt 
for bread rather than starve with the nobility that is 
in him untainted, the excuse is a valid one. It 
would excuse theft in Washingtons and Wellingtons, 
and unchastity in women as well. 

But, somehow, I cannot keep that Medici mauso- 
leum out of my memory. It is as large as a church ; 
its pavement is rich enough for the pavement of a 
king's palace; its great dome is gorgeous with fres- 
coes; its walls are made of — what? Marble? — 
plaster ? — wood ? — paper ? — No. Red porphyry — 
verde antique — jasper — oriental agate — alabaster 
— mother-of-pearl — chalcedony — red coral — lapis 
lazuli ! All the vast walls are made wholly of these 
precious stones, worked in and in and in together 
in elaborate patterns and figures, and polished till 
they glow like great mirrors with the pictured splen- 
dors reflected from the dome overhead. And before 
a statue of one of those dead Medicis reposes a 
crown that blazes with diamonds and emeralds 
enough to buy a ship-of-the-line, almost. These 
are the things the government has its evil eye upon, 
and a happy thing it will be for Italy when they 
melt away in the public treasury. 

And now — . However, another beggar ap- 
proaches. I will go out and destroy him, and then 
come back and write another chapter of vituperation. 

Having eaten the friendless orphan — having 
driven away his comrades — having grown calm and 
reflective at length — I now feel in a kindlier mood. 



The Innocents Abroad 333 

I feel that after talking so freely about the priests 
and the churches, justice demands that if I know 
anything good about either I ought to say it. I 
have heard of many things that redound to the 
credit of the priesthood, but the most notable matter 
that occurs to me now is the devotion one of the 
mendicant orders showed during the prevalence of 
the cholera last year. I speak of the Dominican 
friars — men who wear a coarse, heavy brown robe 
and a cowl, in this hot climate, nnd go barefoot. 
They live on aims altogether, I believe. They must 
unquestionably love their religion, to suffer so much 
for it. When the cholera was raging in Naples; 
when the people were dying by hundreds and hun- 
dreds every day ; when every concern for the public 
welfare was swallowed up in selfish private interest, 
and every citizen made the taking care of himself 
his sole object, these men banded themselves together 
and went about nursing the sick and burying the 
dead. Their noble efforts cost many of them their 
lives. They laid them down cheerfully, and well 
they might. Creeds mathematically precise, and 
hair-splitting niceties of doctrine, are absolutely 
necessary for the salvation of some kinds of souls., 
but surely the charity, the purity, the unselfishness 
that are in the hearts of men like these would save 
their souls though they were bankrupt in the true 
religion — which is ours. 

One of these fat barefooted rascals came here to 
Civita Vecchia with us in the little French steamer. 



334 The Innocents Abroad 

There were only half a dozen of us in the cabin. 
He belonged in the steerage. He was the life of the 
ship, the bloody-minded son of the Inquisition ! He 
and the leader of the marine band of a French man- 
of-war played on the piano and sang opera turn 
about; they sang duets together; they rigged im- 
promptu theatrical costumes and gave us extravagant 
farces and pantomimes. We got along first-rate 
with the friar, and were excessively conversational, 
albeit he could not understand what we said, and 
certainly he never uttered a word that we could 
guess the meaning of. 

This Civita Vecchia is the finest nest of dirt, 
vermin, and ignorance we have found yet, except 
that African perdition they call Tangier, which is 
just like it. The people here live in alleys two 
yards wide, which have a smell about them which is 
peculiar but not entertaining. It is well the alleys 
are not wider, because they hold as much smell now 
as a person can stand, and, of course, if they were 
wider they would hold more, and then the people 
would die. These alleys are paved with stone, and 
carpeted with deceased cats, and decayed rags, and 
decomposed vegetable tops, and remnants of old 
boots, all soaked with dish-water, and the people sit 
around on stools and enjoy it. They are indolent, 
as a general thing, and yet have few pastimes. 
They work two or three hours at a time, but not 
hard, and then they knock off and catch flies. This 
does not require any talent, because they only have 



The Innocents Abroad 335 

to grab — if they do not get the one they are after, 
they get another. It is all the same to them They 
have no partialities. Whichever one they get is the 
one they want. 

They have other kinds of insects, but it does not 
make them arrogant. They are very quiet, unpre- 
tending people. They have more of these kind of 
things than other communities, but they do not 
boast. 

They are very uncleanly — these people — in face, 
in person, and dress. When they see anybody with 
a clean shirt on, it arouses their scorn. The women 
wash clothes, half the day, at the public tanks in 
the streets, but they are probably somebody else's. 
Or may be they keep one set to wear and another 
to wash i because they never put on any that have 
ever been washed. When they get done wash- 
ing, they sit in the alleys and nurse their cubs. 
They nurse one ash-cat at a time, and the others 
scratch their backs against the door-post and are 
happy. 

All this country belongs to the Papal states. 
They do not appear to have any schools here, and 
only one billiard table. Their education is at a 
very low stage. One portion of the men go into the 
military, another into the priesthood, and the rest 
into the shoemaking business. 

They keep up the passport system here, but so 
they do in Turkey. This shows that the Papal 
states are as far advanced as Turkey- This fact will 



336 The Innocents Abroaa 

be alone sufficient to silence the tongues of malignant 
calumniators. I had to get my passport vis^d foJ 
Rome in Florence, and then they would not let me 
come ashore here until a policeman had examined it 
on the wharf and sent me a permit. They did not 
even dare to let me take my passport in my hands 
for twelve hours, I looked so formidable. They 
judged it best to let me cool down. They thought 
I wanted to take the town, likely. Little did they 
know me. I wouldn't have it. They examined my 
baggage at the depot. They took one of my ablest 
jokes and read it over carefully twice and then read 
it backwards. But it was too deep for them. They 
passed it around, and everybody speculated on it 
awhile, but it mastered them all. 

It was no common joke. At length a veteran 
officer spelled it over deliberately and shook his head 
three or four times and said that, in his opinion, it 
was seditious. That was the first time I felt 
alarmed. I immediately said I would explain the 
document, and they crowded around. And so 
I explained and explained and explained, and they 
took notes of all I said, but the more I explained 
the more they could not understand it, and when 
they desisted at last, I could not even understand it 
myself. They said they believed it was an Incen- 
diary document, leveled at the government. I de- 
clared solemnly that it was not, but they only shook 
their heads and would not be satisfied. Then they 
consulted a good while ; and finally they confiscated 



The Innocents Abroad 33; 

it. I was very sorry for this, because I had worked 
a long time on that joke, and took a good deal of 
pride in it, and now I suppose I shall never see it 
any more. I suppose it will be sent up and filed 
away among the criminal archives of Rome, and 
will always be regarded as a mysterious infernal 
machine which would have blown up like a mine and 
scattered the good Pope all around, but for a 
miraculous providential interference. And I sup- 
pose that all the time I am in Rome the police will 
dog me about from place to place because they 
think I am a dangerous character. 

It is fearfully hot in Civita Vecchia. The streets 
are made very narrow and the houses built very 
solid and heavy and high, as a protection against 
the heat. This is the first Italian town I have seen 
which does not appear to have a patron saint. I 
suppose no saint but the one that went up in the 
chariot of fire could stand the climate. 

There is nothing here to see. They have not 
even a cathedral, with eleven tons of solid silver 
archbishops in the back room; and they do not 
show you any moldy buildings that are seven thou- 
sand years old ; nor any smoke-dried old fire-screens 
which are chef d' cettvres of Rubens or Simpson, or 
Titian or Ferguson, or any of those parties; and 
they haven't any bottled fragments of saints, and 
not even a nail from the true cross. We are going 
to Rome. There is nothing to see here. 
22* 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

WHAT is it that confers the noblest delifjht? 
What is that which swells a man*s breast with 
pride above that which any other experience can 
bring to him ? Discovery ! To know that you are 
walking where none others have walked ; that you 
are beholding what human eye has not seen before ; 
that you are breathing a virgin atmosphere. To 
give birth to an idea — to discover a great thought 
— an intellectual nugget, right under the dust of a 
field that many a brain-plow had gone over before. 
To find a new planet, to invent a new hinge, to find 
the way to make the lightnings carry your messages. 
To be \hQ first — that is the idea. To do some- 
thing, say something, see something, before anybody 
else — these are the things that confer a pleasure 
compared with which other pleasures are tame and 
commonplace, other ecstasies cheap and trivial. 
Morse, with his first message, brought by his 
servant, the lightning; Fulton, in that long-drawn 
century of suspense, when he placed his hand upon 
the throttle- valve, and lo, the steamboat moved; 
Jenner, when his patient with the cow's virus in his 

(338) 



The Innocents Abroad 3)9 

blood, walked through the small-pox hospitals un- 
scathed; Howe, when the idea shot through his 
brain that for a hundred and twenty generations the 
eye had been bored through the wrong end of the 
needle ; the nameless lord of art who laid down his 
chisel in some old age that is forgotten now, and 
gloated upon the finished Laocoon; Daguerre, when 
he commanded the sun, riding in the zenith, to print 
the landscape upon his insignificant silvered plate, 
and he obeyed; Columbus, in the Pinta's shrouds, 
when he swung his hat above a fabled sea and gazed 
abroad upon an unknown world ! These are the 
men who have really lived — who have actually 
comprehended what pleasure is — who have crowded 
long lifetimes of ecstasy into a single moment. 

What is there in Rome for me to see that others 
have not seen before me? What is there for me to 
touch that others have not touched ? What is there 
for me to feel, to learn, to hear, to know, that shall 
thrill me before it pass to others? What can I dis- 
cover? Nothing. Nothing whatsoever. One charm 
of travel dies here. But if I were only a Roman ! 
If, added to my own I could be gifted with modern 
Roman sloth, modern Roman superstition, and 
modern Roman boundlessness of ignorance, what 
bewildering worlds of unsuspected wonders I would 
discover! Ah, if I were only a habitant of the 
Campagna five and twenty miles from Rome ! 
Then I would travel. 

I would go to America, and see. and learn, and 



340 The Innocents Abroad 

return to" the Campagna and stand before my 
countrymen an illustrious discoverer. I would say: 
** I saw there a country which has no overshadow- 
ing Mother Church, and yet the people survive. I 
saw a government which never was protected by 
foreign soldiers at a cost greater than that required 
to carry on the government itself. I saw common 
men and common women who could read ; I even 
saw small children of common country people read- 
ing from books ; if I dared think you would believe 
it, I would say they could write, also. In the cities 
I saw people drinking a delicious beverage made of 
chalk and water, but never once saw goats driven 
through their Broadway or their Pennsylvania avenue 
or their Montgomery street and milked at the doors 
of the houses. I saw real glass windows in the 
houses of even the commonest people. Some of 
the houses are not of stone, nor yet of bricks ; I 
solemnly swear they are made of wood. Houses 
there will take fire and burn, sometimes — actually 
burn entirely down, and not leave a single vestige 
behind. I could state that for a truth, upon my 
death-bed. And as a proof that the circumstance is 
not rare, I aver that they have a thing which they 
call a fire-engine, which vomits forth great streams 
of water, and is kept always in readiness, by night 
and by day, to rush to houses that are burning. 
You would think one engine would be sufficient, but 
some great cities have a hundred; they keep men 
hired, and pay them by the month to do nothing 



The innocents Abroadi 341 

but put out fires. For a certain sum of money othef 
men will insure that your house shall not burn 
down; and if it burns they will pay you for it. 
There are hundreds and thousands of schools, and 
anybody may go and learn to be wise, like a priest; 
In that singular country, if a rich man dies a sinner, 
he is damned ; he cannot buy salvation with money 
for masses. There is really not much use in being 
rich, there. Not much use as far as the other world 
is concerned, but much, very much use, as concerns 
this; because there, if a man be rich, he is very 
greatly honored, and can become a legislator, a 
governor, a general, a senator, no matter how igno- 
rant an ass he is -— just as in our beloved Italy the 
nobles hold all the great places, even though some- 
times they are born noble idiots. There, if a man 
be rich, they give him costly presents, they ask him 
to feasts, they invite him to drink complicated 
beverages ; but if he be poor and in debt, they re- 
quire him to do that which they term to * settle.' 
The women put on a different dress almost every 
day; the dress is usually fine, but absurd in shape; 
the very shape and fashion of it changes twice in a 
hundred years ; and did I but covet to be called an 
extravagant falsifier, I would say it changed even 
oftener. Hair does not grow upon the American 
women's heads; it is made for them by cunning 
workmen in the shops, and is curled and frizzled 
into scandalous and ungodly forms. Some persons 
wear eyes of glass which they see through with 



342 The Innocents Abroad 

facility perhaps, else they would not use them ; and 
m the mouths of some are teeth made by the sacri- 
legious hand of man. The dress of the men is 
laughably grotesque. They carry no musket in 
ordinary hfe, nor no long-pointed pole; they wear 
no wide green-lined cloak; they wear no peaked 
black felt hat, no leathern gaiters reaching to the 
knee, no goatskin breeches with the hair side out, 
no hob-nailed shoes, no prodigious spurs. They 
wear a conical hat termed a * nail-kag * ; a coat of 
saddest black; a shirt which shows dirt so easily 
that it has to be changed every month, and is very 
troublesome; things called pantaloons, which are 
held up by shoulderstraps, and on their feet they 
wear boots which are ridiculous in pattern and can 
stand no wear. Yet dressed in this fantastic garb, 
these people laughed at my costume. In that 
country, books are so common that it is really no 
curiosity to see one. Newspapers also. They have 
a great machine which prints such things by thou- 
sands every hour. 

** I saw common men there — men who were 
neither priests nor princes — who yet absolutely 
owned the land they tilled. It was not rented from 
the church, nor from the nobles. I am ready to 
take my oath of this. In that country you might 
fall from a third-story window three several times, 
and not mash either a soldier or a priest. The 
scarcity of such people is astonishing. In the cities 
you will see a dozen civilians for every soldier, and 



The Innocents Abroad 343 

as many for every priest or preacher. Jews, there, 
are treated just like human beings, instead of dogs. 
They can work at any business they please ; they 
can sell brand new goods if they want to ; they can 
keep drugstores ; they can practice medicine among 
Christians ; they can even shake hands with Chris- 
tians if they choose; they can associate with them, 
just the same as one human being does with another 
human being; they don't have to stay shut up in 
one corner of the towns ; they can live in any part 
of a town they like best ; it is said they even have 
the privilege of buying land and houses, and owning 
them themselves, though I doubt that myself; they 
never have had to run races naked through the 
public streets, against jackasses, to please the people 
in carnival time; there they never have been driven 
by the soldiers into a church every Sunday for hun- 
dreds of years to hear themselves and their religion 
especially and particularly cursed ; at this very day, 
in that curious country, a Jew is allowed to vote, 
hold office, yea, get up on a rostrum in the public 
street and express his opinion of the government if 
the government don't suit him ! Ah, it is wonder- 
ful. The common people there know a great deal ; 
they even have the effrontery to complain if they 
are not properly governed, and to take hold and 
help conduct the government themselves; if they 
had laws like ours, which give one dollar of every 
three a crop produces to the government for taxes, 
they would have that law altered ; instead of payinj^. 



344 The Innocents Abroad 

thirty-three dollars in taxes, out of every one hun* 
dred they receive, they complain if they have to pay 
seven. They are curious people. They do not 
know when they are well off. Mendicant priests do 
not prowl among them with baskets begging for the 
church and eating up their substance. One hardly 
ever sees a minister of the Gospel going around 
there in his bare feet, with a basket, begging for 
subsistence. In that country the preachers are not 
like our mendicant orders of friars — they have two 
or three suits of clothing, and they wash sometimes. 
In that land are mountains far higher than the Alban 
mountains; the vast Roman Campagna, a hundred 
miles long and full forty broad, is really small com- 
pared to the United States of America ; the Tiber, 
that celebrated river of ours, which stretches its 
mighty course almost two hundred miles, and which 
a lad can scarcely throw a stone across at Rome, is 
not so long, nor yet so wide, as the American 
Mississippi — nor yet the Ohio, nor even the Hud- 
son. In America the people are absolutely wiser 
and know much more than their grandfathers did. 
They do not plow with a sharpened stick, nor yet 
with a three-cornered block of wood that merely 
scratches the top of the ground. We do that be- 
cause our fathers did, three thousand years ago, I 
suppose. But those people have no holy reverence 
for their ancestors. They plow with a plow that is 
a sharp, curved blade of iron, and it cuts into the 
sarth full five inches. And this is not all They 



The Innocents Abroad 545 

cut their grain with a horrid machine that mows 
down whole fields in a day. If I dared, I would say- 
that sometimes they use a blasphemous plow that 
works by fire and vapor and tears up an acre of 
ground in a single hour— -but — but — I see by your 
looks that you do not believe the things I am telling 
you. Alas, my character is ruined; and I am a 
branded speaker of untruths.** 

Of course we have been to the monster Church of 
St. Peter, frequently. I knew its dimensions. I 
knew it was a prodigious structure. I knew it was 
just about the length of the capitol at Washington — 
say seven hundred and thirty feet. I knew it was 
three hundred and sixty-four feet wide, and conse- 
quently wider than the capitol. I knew that the 
cross on the top of the dome of the church was four 
hundred and thirty-eight feet above the ground, and 
therefore about a hundred or may be a hundred and 
twenty-five feet higher than the dome of the capitoL 
Thus I had one gauge. I wished to come as near 
forming a correct idea of how it was going to look 
as possible ; I had a curiosity to see how much I 
would err. I erred considerably. St. Peter's did 
not look nearly so large as the capitol, and certainly 
not a twentieth part as beautiful, from the outside. 

When we reached the door, and stood fairly within 
the church, it was impossible to comprehend that it 
was a very large building. I had to cipher a com- 
prehension of it. I had to ransack my memory for 
some more similes. St. Peter's is bulky. Its height 



546 The Innocents Abroad 

and size would represent two of the Washington 
capitol set one on top of the other — if the capitol 
were wider ; or two blocks or two blocks and a half 
of ordinary buildings set one on top of the other, 
St. Peter's was that large, but it could and would 
not look so. The trouble was that everything in it 
and about it was on such a scale of uniform vastness 
that there were no contrasts to judge by — none but 
the people, and I had not noticed thenic They 
were insects. The statues of children holding vases 
of holy water were immense, according to the tables 
of figures, but so was everything else around them. 
The mosaic pictures in the dome were huge, and 
were made of thousands and thousands of cubes of 
glass as large as the end of my little finger, but 
those pictures looked smooth, and gaudy of color, 
and in good proportion to the dome. Evidently 
they would not answer to measure by. Away down 
toward the far end of the church (I thought it was 
really clear at the far end, but discovered afterward 
that it was in the center, under the dome) stood the 
thing they call the baldacchino — a great bronze 
pyramidal frame-work like that which upholds a 
mosquito-bar. It only looked hke a considerably 
magnified bedstead — nothing more. Yet I knew it 
was a good deal more than half as high as Niagara 
Falls. It was overshadowed by a dome so mighty 
that its own height was snubbed. The four great 
square piers or pillars that stand equidistant from 
each other in the church, and support the roof, I 



The Innocents Abroad 34? 

could not work up to their real dimensions by any 
method of comparison. I knew that the faces of 
each were about the width of a very large dwelling- 
house front (fifty or sixty feet), and that they were 
twice as high as an ordinary three-story dwelling, 
but still they looked small. I tried all the different 
ways I could think of to compel myself to under- 
stand how large St. Peter's was, but with small sue 
cess. The mosaic portrait of an Apostle who was 
writing with a pen six feet long seemed only an 
ordinary Apostle. 

But the people attracted my attention after a 
while. To stand in the door of St. Peter*s and look 
at men down toward its further extremity, two blocks 
away, has a diminishing effect on them ; surrounded 
by the prodigious pictures and statues, and lost in 
the vast spaces, they look very much smaller than 
they would if they stood two blocks away in the 
open air. I ** averaged** a man as he passed m.e 
and watched him as he drifted far down by the 
baldacchino and beyond — - watched him dwindle to 
an insignificant school-boy, and then, in the midst 
of the silent throng of human pigmies gliding about 
him, I lost him. The church had lately been 
decorated, on the occasion of a great ceremony in 
honor of St. Peter, and men were engaged now in 
removing the flowers and gilt paper from the walls 
and pillars. As no ladders could reach the great. 
heights, the men swung themselves down from 
balustrades and the capitals of pilasters by ropes, tc 



348 The innocents Abroad 

do this work. The upper gallery which encircles 
the inner sweep of the dome is two hundred and 
forty feet above the floor of the church — very few 
steeples in America could reach up to it. Visitors 
always go up there to look down into the church 
because one gets the best idea of some of the 
heights and distances from that point. While we 
stood on the floor one of the workmen swung loose 
from that gallery at the end of a long rope. I had 
not supposed, before, that a man could look so 
much like a spider. He was insignificant in size, 
and his rope seemed only a thread. Seeing that he 
took up so little space, I could believe the story, 
then, that ten thousand troops went to St. Peter's 
once to hear mass, and their commanding officer 
came afterward, and not finding them, supposed 
they had not yet arrived. But they were in the 
church, nevertheless — they were in one of the 
transepts. Nearly fifty thousand persons assembled 
in St. Peter's to hear the publishing of the dogma of 
the Immaculate Conception. It is estimated that the 
floor of the church affords standing room for — for a 
large number of people ; I have forgotten the exact 
figures. But it is no matter — it is near enough. 

They have twelve small pillars, in St. Peter's, 
which came from Solomon's Temple. They have, 
also — which was far more interesting to me — a 
piece of the true cross, and some nails, and a part 
of the crown of thorns. 

Of course, we ascended to the summit of the 



The Innocents Abroad 349 

dome, and, of course, we also went up into the gilt 

copper ball which is above it. There was room 

there for a dozen persons, with a little crowding, and 

it was as close and hot as an oven. Some of those 

people who are so fond of writing their names in 

prominent places had been there before us — a 

million or two, I should think. From the dome of 

St. Peter's one can see every notable object in 

Rome, from the Castle of St. Angelo to the 

Coliseum. He can discern the seven hills upon 

which Rome is built. He can see the Tiber, and 

the locahty of the bridge which Horatius kept ** in 

the brave days of old ' * when Lars Porsena attempted 

to cross it with his invading host. He can see the 

spot where the Horatii and the Curiatii fought their 

famous battle. He can see the broad green Cam- 

pagna, stretching away toward the mountains, with 

its scattered arches and broken aqueducts of the 

olden time, so picturesque in their gray ruin, and so 

daintily festooned with vines. He can see the Alban 

Mountains, the Apennines, the Sabine Hills, and 

the blue Mediterranean. He can see a panorama 

that is varied, extensive, beautiful to the eye, and 

more illustrious in history than any other in Europe. 

About his feet is spread the remnant of a city that 

once had a population of four million souls; and 

among its massed edifices stand the ruins of temples, 

columns, and triumphal arches that knew the 

Caesars, and the noonday of Roman splendor ; and 

close by them* in unimpaired strength, is a drain of 
23 



350 The Innocents Abroad 

arched and heavy masonry that belonged . to that 
older city which stood here before Romulus and 
Remus were born or Rome thought of. The Appian 
Way is here yet, and looking much as it did, per- 
haps, when the triumphal processions of the emper- 
ors moved over it in other days bringing fettered 
princes from the confines of the earth. We cannot 
see the long array -of chariots and mail-clad men 
laden with the spoils of conquest, but we can 
imagine the pageant, after ' fashion. We look out 
upon many objects of interesc from the dome of St. 
Peter's; and last of all, almost at our feet, our eyes 
rest upon the building which was once the Inquisi- 
tion. How times changed, between the older ages 
and the new ! Some seventeen or eighteen centuries 
ago, the ignorant men of Rome were wont to put 
Christians in the arena of the Coliseum yonder, and 
turn the wild beasts in upon them for a show. It 
was for a lesson as well. It was to teach the people 
to abhor and fear the new doctrine the followers of 
Christ were teaching. The beasts tore the victims 
limb from limb and made poor mangled corpses of 
them in the twinkling of an eye. But when the 
Christians came into power, when the holy Mother 
Church became mistress of the barbarians, she 
taught them the error of their ways by no such 
means. No, she put them in this pleasant Inquisi- 
tion and pointed to the Blessed Redeemer, who was 
so gentle and so merciful toward all men, and they 
ur^ed the barbarians to love him ; and they did all 



The Innocents Abroad 351 

they could to persuade them to love and honor him 
—first by twisting their thumbs out of joint with a 
screw; then by nipping their flesh with pincers — 
red-hot ones, because they are the most comfortable 
in cold weather; then by skinning them alive a 
little, and finally by roasting them in public. They 
always convinced those barbarians. The true reli- 
gion, properly administered, as the good Mother 
Church used to administer it, is very, very soothing. 
It is wonderfully persuasive, also. There is a great 
difference between feeciang parties to wild beasts and 
stirring up their finer feelings in an Inquisition, 
One is the system of degraded barbarians, the other 
of enlightened, civilized people. It is a great pity 
the playful Inquisition is no more, 

I prefer not to describe St. Peter's. It has beers 
done before* The ashes of Peter, the disciple of 
the Saviour , 'repose in a crypt under the baldacchino. 
We stood reverently in that place ; so did we also in 
the Mamertlne Prison, where he was confined, where 
he converted the soldiers, and where tradition says 
he caused a spring of water to flow in order that he 
might baptize them. But when they showed us the 
print of Peter's face in the hard stone of the prison 
wall and said he made that by falling up against itj 
we doubted. And when, also, the monk at the 
Church of San Sebastian showed us a paving stone 
with two great footprints in it and said that Peter's 
feet made those, we lacked confidence again. Such 
things do not impress one. The monk said thai: 



352 The Innocents Abroad 

angels came and liberated Peter from prison by 
night, and he started away from Rome by the Ap- 
pian Way. The Saviour met him and told him to 
go back, which he did. Peter left those footprints 
in the stone upon which he stood at the time. It 
was not stated how it was ever discovered whose 
footprints they were, seeing the interview occurred 
secretly and at night. The print of the face in the 
prison was that of a man of common size ; the foot- 
prints were those of a man ten or twelve feet high. 
The discrepancy confirmed our unbelief. 

We necessarily visited -the Forum, where Caesar 
was assassinated, and also the Tarpeian Rock. We 
saw the Dying Gladiator at the Capitol, and I think 
that even we appreciated that wonder of art; as 
much, perhaps, as we did that fearful story wrought 
in marble, in the Vatican — the Laocoon. And 
then the Coliseum. 

Everybody knows the picture of the Coliseum; 
everybody recognizes at once that ** looped and 
windowed *' band-box with a side bitten out. Being 
rather isolated, it shows to better advantage than 
any other of the monuments of ancient Rome. 
Even the beautiful Pantheon, whose pagan altars 
uphold the cross now, and whose Venus, tricked out 
in consecrated gimcracks, does reluctant duty as a 
Virgin Mary to-day, is built about with shabby 
houses and its stateliness sadly marred. But the 
monarch of all European ruins, the Coliseum, 
maintains that reserve and that royal seclusion which 



The Innocents Abroad 553 

Is proper to majesty. Weeds and flowers spring 
from its massy arches and its circling seats, and 
vines hang their fringes from its lofty walls. An 
impressive silence broods over the monstrous struc- 
ture where such multitudes of men and women were 
wont to assemble in other days. The butterflies 
have taken the places of the queens of fashion and 
beauty of eighteen centuries ago^ and the lizards sun 
themselves in the sacred seat of the emperor c More 
vividly than all the written histories^ the Coliseum 
tells, the story of Rome*s grandeur and Rome's 
decay. It is the worthiest type of both that exists. 
Moving about the Rome of to-day, we might find it 
hard to believe in her old magnificence and her 
millions of population ; but with this stubborn evi- 
dence before us that she was obliged to have & 
theater with sitting room for eighty thousand per- 
sons and standing room for twenty thousand more^ 
to accommodate such of her citizens as required 
amusement, we find belief less difficult. The Coli- 
seum is over one thousand six hundred feet long^ 
seven hundred and fifty wide, and one hundred and 
sixty-five high. Its shape is ovaL 

In America we make convicts useful at the same 
time that we punish them for their crimes. We 
farm them out and compel them to earn money for 
the state by making barrels and building roads. 
Thus we combine business with retribution, and all 
things are lovely. But in ancient Rome they com- 
bined religious duty with pleasure. Since it was 
83, 



jl54 The Inncx:ents Abroad 

necessary that the new sect called Christians should 
be exterminated, the people judged it wise to make 
this work profitable to the state at the same time, 
and entertaining to the public. In addition to the 
gladiatorial combats and other shows, they some- 
times threw members of the hated sect into the 
arena of the Coliseum and turned wild beasts in 
upon them. It is estimated that seventy thousand 
Christians suffered martyrdom in this place. This 
has made the Coliseum holy ground, in the eyes of 
the followers of the Saviour. And well it might; 
for if the chain that bound a saint, and the footprints 
a saint has left upon a stone he chanced to stand 
upon, be holy, surely the spot where a man gave up 
his life for his faith is holy. 

Seventeen or eighteen centuries ago this Coliseum 
was the theater of Rome, and Rome was mistress of 
the world. Splendid pageants were exhibited here, 
m presence of the emperor, the great ministers of 
state, the nobles, and vast audiences of citizens of 
smaller consequence. Gladiators fought with gladi- 
ators and at times with warrior prisoners from many 
a distant land. It was the theater of Rome — of the 
world — and the man of fashion who could not let 
fall in a casual and unintentional manner something 
about ** my private box at the Coliseum ** could not 
move in the first circles. When the clothing-store 
merchant wished to consume the corner-grocery 
man with envy, he bought secured seats in the front 
TOW and let the thing be known. When the Lcxe 



The Innocents Abroad 3$$ 

sistible drygoods clerk wished to blight and destroy, 
according to his native instinct, he got himself up 
regardless of expense and took some other fellow's 
young lady to the Coliseum, and then accented the 
affront by cramming her with ice-cream between the 
acts, or by approaching the cage and stirring up the 
martyrs with his whalebone cane for her edification. 
The Roman swell was in his true element only when 
he stood up against a pillar and fingered his mous^ 
tache unconscious of the ladies ; when he viewed the 
bloody combats through an opera-glass two inches 
long; when he excited the envy of provincials by 
criticisms which showed that he had been to the 
CoHseum many and many a time and was long ago 
over the novelty of it ; when he turned away with a 
yawn at last and said i 

* * He a star ! handles his sword like an apprentice 
brigand ! he'll do for the country, maybe, but he 
don't answer for the metropolis!'* 

Glad was the contraband that had a seat In the pit 
at the Saturday matinee, and happy the Roman 
street boy who ate his peanuts and guyed the gladi- 
ators from the dizzy gallery. 

For me was reserved the high honor of discover- 
ing among the rubbish of the ruined Coliseum the 
only playbill of that establishment now extant. 
There was a suggestive smell of mint drops about it 
still, a corner of it had evidently been chewed, and 
on the margin, in choice Latin, these words were 
written in a delicate female hand i 



)56 llie innocents Abroad 

*^Meei me on t/te Tarpeian Rock to-morrow evening ^ dear, ^R 
i/tarp seven. Mother will be absent on a visit to her ff'iends in th. 
Sabine Hills, Claudia." 

Ah, where is that lucky youth to-day, and where 
the little hand that wrote those dainty lines? Dust 
and ashes these seventeen hundred years \ 

Thus reads the bill : 

ROMAN COLISEUM. 

Unparalleled Attraction \ 

new properties! new lions! new gladutorst 

Engagement of the renowned 

MARCUS MARCELLUS VALERIAN I 

FOR SIX NIGHTS ONLY! 

The management beg leave to offer to the public an entertainment 
surpassing in magnificence anything that has heretofore been attempted 
on any stage. No expense has been spared to make the opening season 
one which shall be worthy the generous patronage which the manage- 
ment feel sure will crown their efforts. The management beg leave to 
state that they have succeeded in securing the services of s 

GALAXY OF TALENT i 
such as has not been beheld in Rome before. 

The performance will commence this evening with a. 
GRAND BROADSWORD COMBAT? 
ixitween Hwo young and promising amateurs and a celebrated Parthiaiv 
gladiator who has just arrived a prisoner from the Camp of Verus,, 

This will be followed by a grand moral 

BATTLE-AX ENGAGEMENT! 
between the renowned Valerian (with one hand tied behind him) and 
two gigantic savages from Britain. 

After which the renowned Valerian (if he survive) will fight with 
•he broadsword, 

LEFT HANDED I 
ig;ainst six Sophomores and a Freshman from the Gladiatorial CoUe£[e ■ 



The Innocents Abroad 357 

A long series of brilliant engagements will follow, in which the finest 
talent of the Empire will take part. 

After which the celebrated Infant Prodigy known as 
«'THE YOUNG ACHILLES," 
will engage four tiger whelps in combat, armed with no other weapon 
than his little spear ! 

The whole to conclude with a chaste and elegant 
GENERAL SLAUGHTER! 
In which thirteen African Lions and twenty-two Barbarian Prisoners 
will war with each other until all are exterminated. 
BOX OFFICE NOW OPEN. 

Dress Circle One Dollar; Children and Servants half price. 

An efficient police force will be on hand to preserve order and keep 
Aie wild beasts from leaping the railings and discommoding the audience. 

Doors open at 7; performance begins at 8, 

Positively no Free List. 

Diodorus Job Press. 

It was as singular as it was gratifying that I was 
also so fortunate as to find among the rubbish of the 
arena a stained and mutilated copy of the Roman 
Daily Battle-Axey containing a critique upon this 
very performance. It comes to hand too late by 
many centuries to rank as news, and therefore I 
translate and publish it simply to show how very 
little the general style and phraseology of dramatic 
criticism has altered in the ages that have dragged 
their slow length along since the carriers laid this 
one damp and fresh before their Roman patrons : 

"The Opening Season. — Coliseum. — Notwithstanding the in- 
clemency of the weather, quite a respectable number of the rank and 
fashion of the city assembled last night to witness the debut upon metro- 
politan boards of the young tragedian who has of late been winning such 
golden opinions in the amphitheaters of the provinces. Some sixty 



}58 The Innocents Abroad 

thousand persons were present, and but for the fact that the streets were 
almost impassable, it is fair to presume that the house would have been 
full. His august Majesty, the Emperor Aurelius, occupied the imperial 
box, and was the cynosure of all eyes. Many illustrious nobles and 
generals of the Empire graced the occasion with their presence, and not 
the least among them was the young patrician lieutenant whose laurels, 
won in the ranks of the 'Thundering Legion,' are still so green upon 
his brow. The cheer which greeted his entrance was heard beyond the 
Tiber ! 

'*The late repairs and decorations add both to the comeliness and 
the comfort of the Coliseum, The new cushions are a great improve- 
ment upon the hard marble seats we have been so long accustomed to. 
The present management deserve well of the pubHc. They have re- 
stored to the CoHseum the gilding, the rich upholstery, and the uniform 
magnificence which old Coliseum frequenters tell us Rome was so proud 
of fifty years ago. 

*' The opening scene last night — the broadsword combat between 
two young amateurs and a famous Parthian gladiator who was sent here 
a prisoner — was very fine. The elder of the two young gentlemen 
handled his weapon with a grace that marked the possession of extraor- 
dinary talent. His feint of thrusting, followed instantly by a happily 
delivered blow which unhelmeted the Parthian, was received with hearty 
applause. He was not thoroughly up in the backhanded stroke, but it 
was very gratifying to his numerous friends to know that, in time, prac- 
tice would have overcome this defect. However, he was killed. His 
sisters, who were present, expressed considerable regret. His mother 
left the CoHseum. The other youth maintained the contest with such 
spirit as to call forth enthusiastic bursts of applause. When at last he 
tell a corpse, his aged mother ran screaming, with hair disheveled and 
tears streaming from her eyes, and swooned away just as her hands were 
clutching at the railings of the arena. She- was promptly removed by 
the pohce. Under the circumstances the woman's conduct was pardon- 
able, perhaps, but we suggest that such exhibitions interfere with the 
decorum which should be preserved during the performances, and are 
highly improper in the presence of the Emperor. The Parthian prisoner 
fought bravely and well; and well he might, for he was fighting for both 
life and liberty. His wife and children were there to nerve his arm with 
their love, and to remind him of the old home he should see again if he 
conquered. When his second assailant fell, the woman clasped her chil' 



lue Innocents Abroad 359 

dren to her breast and wept for joy. But it was only a transient happi* 
ness. The captive staggered toward her and she saw that the liberty he 
had earned was earned too late. He was wounded unto death. Thus 
the first act closed in a manner which was entirely satisfactory. The 
manager was called before the curtain and returned his thanks for the 
honor done him, in a speech which was replete with wit and humor, and 
closed by hoping that his humble efforts to afford cheerful and instruc- 
tive entertainment would continue to meet with the approbation of the 
Roman public. 

•* The star now appeared, and was received with vociferous applause 
and the simultaneous waving of sixty thousand handkerchiefs. Marcus 
Marcellus Valerian (stage name — his real name is Smith) is a splendid 
specimen of physical development, and an artist of rare merit. His 
management of the battle-axe is wonderful. His gayety and his playful- 
ness are irresistible, in his comic parts, and yet they are inferior to his 
sublime conceptions in the grave realm of tragedy. When his axe was 
describing fiery circles about the heads of the bewildered barbarians, in 
exact time with his springing body and his prancing legs, the audience 
gave way to uncontrollable bursts of laughter; but when the back of his 
weapon broke the skull of one and almost in the same instant its edge 
clove the other's body in twain, the howl of enthusiastic applause that 
shook the building was the acknowledgment of a critical assemblage 
that he was a master of the noblest department of his profession. If he 
has a fault (and we are sorry to even intimate that he has), it is that of 
glancing at the audience, in the midst of the most exciting moments of 
the performance, as if seeking admiration. The pausing in a fight to 
bow when bouquets are thrown to him is also in bad taste. In the great 
left-handed combat he appeared to be looking at the audience half the 
time, instead of carving his adversaries; and when he had slain all ^he 
sophomores and was dallying with the freshmen, he stooped and snatched 
a bouquet as it fell, and offered it to his adversary at a time when a blow 
was descending which promised favorably to be his death-warrant. 
Such levity is proper enough in the provinces, we make no doubt, but 
it ill suits the dignity of the metropoHs. We trust our young friend will 
take these remarks in good part, for we mean them solely for his benefit. 
All who know us are aware that although we are at times justly severg 
upon tigers and martyrs, we never intentionally offend gladiators. 

"The Infant Prodigy performed wonders. He overcame his four 
tiger whelps with ease, and with no other hurt than the loss of a portioB 



360 The Innocents Abroad 

of his scalp. The General Slaughter was rendered with a faithfulness 
to details which reflects the highest credit upon the late participants in it. 

*'Upon the whole, last night's performances shed honor not only 
upon the management but upon the city that encourages and sustains such 
wholesome and instructive entertainments. We would simply suggest 
that the practice of vulgar young boys in the gallery of shying peanuts 
and paper pellets at the tigers, and saying ' Hi-yi ! ' and manifesting 
approbation or dissatisfaction by such observations as ' Bully for the 
lion ! ' 'Go it, Gladdy ! ' ' Boots ! ' ' Speech ! ' ' Take a walk round 
the block ! * and so on, are extremely reprehensible, when the Emperor 
is present, and ought to be stopped by the police. Several times last 
night, when the supernumeraries entered the arena to drag out the 
bodies, the young ruffians in the gallery shouted, * Supe ! supe ! ' and 
also, * Oh, what a coat ! ' and ' Why don't you pad them shanks? ' and 
made use of various other remarks expressive of derision. These things 
are very annoying to the audience. 

"A matinee for the little folks is promised for this afternoon, on 
which occasion several martyrs will be eaten by the tigers. The regular 
performance will continue every night till further notice. Material 
change of programme every evening. Benefit of Valerian, Tuesday, 
29th, if he lives." 

I have been a dramatic critic myself, in my time, 
and I was often surprised to notice how much more 
I knew about Hamlet than Forrest did; and it 
gratifies me to observe, now, how much better my 
brethren of ancient times knew how a broadsword 
battle ought to be fought than the gladiators. 



CHAPTER XXVIL 

SO far, good. If any man has a right to feel 
proud of himself, and satisfied, surely it is I. 
For I have written about the Coliseum and the 
gladiators, the martyrs and the lions, and yet have 
never once used the phrase '^ butchered to make a 
Roman holiday." I am the only free white man 
of mature age who has accomplished this since 
Byron originated the expression. 

Butchered to make a Roman holiday sounds well 
for the first seventeen or eighteen hundred thousand 
times one sees it in print, but after that it begins to 
grow tiresome. I find it in all the books concerning 
Rome — and here latterly it reminds me of Judge 
Oliver. Oliver was a young lawyer, fresh from the 
schools, who had gone out to the deserts of Nevada 
to begin life. He found that country, and our 
ways of life there, in those early days, different 
from life in New England or Paris. But he put on 
a woolen shirt and strapped a navy revolver to his 
person, took to the bacon and beans of the country^ 
and determined to do in Nevada as Nevada did. 
Oliver accepted the situation so completely th?t' 

(361) 



362 The Innocents Abroad 

although he must have sorrowed over many of his 
trials, he never complained — that is, he never com- 
plained but once. He, two others, and myself, 
started to the new silver mines in the Humboldt 
mountains — he to be Probate Judge of Humboldt 
county, and we to mine. The distance was two 
hundred miles. It was dead of winter. We bought 
a two-horse wagon and put eighteen hundred pounds 
of bacon, flour, beans, blasting powder, picks, and 
shovels in it ; we bought two sorry-looking Mexican 
'* plugs,*' with the hair turned the wrong way and 
more corners on their bodies than there are on the 
mosque of Omar; we hitched up and started. It 
was a dreadful trip^ But Oliver did not complain. 
The horses dragged the wagon two miles from town 
and then gave out Then we three pushed the 
wagon seven miles, and Oliver moved ahead and 
pulled the horses after him by the bits. We com- 
plained, but Oliver did not. The ground was frozen, 
and it froze our backs while we slept; the wind 
swept across our faces and froze our noses, Oliver 
did not complain. Five days of pushing the wagon 
by day and freezing by night brought us to the bad 
part of the journey — the Forty Mile Desert, or the 
Great American Desert, if you please. Still, this 
mildest-mannered man that ever was had not com- 
plainedc We started across at eight in the morning, 
pushing through sand that had no bottom ; toiling 
all day long by the wrecks of a thousand wagons, 
the skeletons of ten thousand oxen ; by wagon-tires 



The innocents Abroad y5li 

enough to hoop the Washington Monument to the 
top, and ox-chains enough to girdle Long Island; by 
human graves ; with our throats parched always with 
thirst; lips bleeding from the alkali dust; hungry, 
perspiring, and very, very weary — so weary that 
when we dropped in the sand every fifty yards to 
rest the horses, we could hardly keep from going to 
sleep — no complaints from Oliver; none the next 
morning at three o'clock, when we got across, tired 
to death. Awakened two or three nights afterward 
at midnight, in a narrow canon, by the snow falling 
on our faces, and appalled at the imminent danger 
of being ** snowed in," we harnessed up and pushed 
on till eight in the morning, passed the ** Divide*' 
and knew we were saved. No complaints. Fifteen 
days of hardship and fatigue brought us to the end 
of the two hundred miles, and the judge had not 
complained. We wondered if anything could exas- 
perate him. We built a Humboldt house. It is 
done in this way. You dig a square in the steep 
base of the mountain, and set up two uprights and 
top them with two joists. Then you stretch a great 
sheet of ** cotton domestic " from the point where 
the joists join the hillside down over the joists to the 
ground ; this makes the roof and the front of the 
mansion ; the sides and back are the dirt walls your 
diggii^g has left. A chimney is easily made by 
turning up one corner of the roof. Oliver was sit- 
ting alone in this dismal den, one night, by a sage- 
brush fire, writing poetry; he was very fond of 



}64 The Innocents Abroad 

ti^ggii^g poetry out of himself — or blasting it out 
when it came hard. He heard an animal's footsteps 
close to the roof; a stone or two and some dirt 
came through and fell by him. He grew uneasy 
and said: **Hi! — clear out from there, can't 
you!"- — from time to time. But by and by he 
fell asleep where he sat, and pretty soon a mule fell 
down the chimney ! The fire flew in every direc- 
tion, and Oliver went over backwards. About ten 
nights after that he recovered confidence enough to 
go to writing poetry again. Again he dozed off to 
sleep, and again a mule fell down the chimney. 
This time, about half of that side of the house came 
in with the mule. Struggling to get up, the mule 
kicked the candle out and smashed most of the 
kitchen furniture, and raised considerable dust. 
These violent awakenings must have been annoying 
to Oliver, but he never complained. He moved to 
a mansion on the opposite side of the caflon, be- 
cause he had noticed the mules did not go there. 
One night about eight o'clock he was endeavoring to 
finish his poem, when a stone rolled in — then a 
hoof appeared below the canvas — then part of a 
GOV/ — the after part. He leaned back in dread, 
and shouted **Hooy! hooy! get out of this!** and 
the cow struggled manfully — lost ground steadily — 
dirt and dust streamed down, and before Oliver 
could get well away, the entire cow crashed through 
on to the table and made a shapeless wreck of every* 
thing! 



The Innocents Abroad 36S 

Then, for the first time in his life, I think, Oliver 
complained. He said: 

** This thing' is growifig monotonous /'* 

Then he resigned his judgeship and left Humboldt 
county. ** Butchered to make a Roman holiday '** 
has grown monotonous to me. 

In this connection I wish to say one word about 
Michael Angelo Buonarotti. I used to worship the 
mighty genius of Michael Angelo — that man who 
was great in poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture 
— great in everything he undertook. But I do not 
want Michael Angelo for breakfast — for luncheon — 
for dinner — for tea — for supper — for between 
meals. I like a change, occasionally. In Genoaj 
he designed everything; in Milan he or his pupils 
designed everything ; he designed the Lake of Como ; 
in Padua, Verona, Venice, Bologna, who did we 
ever hear of, from guides, but Michael Angelo? In 
Florence, he painted everything, designed every- 
thing, nearly, and what he did not design he used to 
sit on a favorite stone and look at, and they showed 
us the stone. In Pisa he designed everything but 
the old shot-tower, and they would have attributed 
that to him if it had not been so awfully out of the 
perpendicular. He designed the piers of Leghorn 
and the custom-house regulations of Civita Vecchia. 
But, here — here it is frightful. He designed St. 
Peter's; he designed the Pope; he designed the 
Pantheon, the uniform of the Pope's soldiers, the 
Tiber, the Vatican, the Coliseum, the Capitol, the 

34 



366 The Innocents Abroad 

Tarpeian Rock, the Barberini Palace, St. John 
Lateran, the Campagna, the Appian Way, the Seven 
Hills, the Baths of Caracalla, the Claudian Aqueduct, 
the Cloaca Maxima — the eternal bore designed the 
Eternal City,. and unless all men and books do lie, 
he painted everything in it ! Dan said the other day 
to the guide, ** Enough, enough, enough! Say no 
more ! Lump the whole thing ! say that the Creator 
made Italy from designs by Michael Angelo !** 

I never felt so fervently thankful, so soothed, so 
tranquil, so filled with a blessed peace, as I did yes- 
terday when I learned that Michael Angelo was dead. 

But we have taken it out of this guide. He has 
marched us through miles of pictures and sculpture 
in the vast corridors of the Vatican ; and through 
miles of pictures and sculpture in twenty other 
palaces; he has shown us the great picture in the 
Sistine Chapel, and frescoes enough to fresco the 
heavens — pretty much all done by Michael Angelo. 
So with him we have played that game which has 
vanquished so many guides for us — imbecility and 
sdiotic questions* These creatures never suspect — ■■ 
they have no idea of a sarcasm . 

He shows us a figure and says : ** Statoo brunzo." 
(Bronze statue.) 

We look at it indifferently and the doctor asks • 
' By Michael Angelo?" 

'* No — -not know who."* 

Then he shows us the ancient Roman Forum 
The doctor asks° ** Michael Angelo?*' 



The Innocents Abroad 567 

A stare from the guide *' No—- a thousan* yeat 
before he is born." 

Then an Egyptian obelisk. Again: "Michael 
Angelo?" 

'* Oh, mon dieu^ genteelmen ! Zis is two thousan' 
year before he is born !'* 

He grows so tired of that unceasing question 
sometimes, that he dreads to show us anything at 
all. The wretch has tried all the ways he can think 
of to make us comprehend that Michael Angelo is 
only responsible for the creation of a part of the 
world, but somehow he has not succeeded yet. Re- 
lief for overtasked eyes and brain from study and 
sightseeing is necessary, ar we shall become idiotic 
sure enough. Therefore this guide must continue 
to suffer. If he does not enjoy it, so much the 
worse for him^ We do. 

In this place I may as well jot down a chapter 
concerning those necessary nuisances, European 
guides. Many a man has wished in his heart he 
could do without his guide ; but knowing he could 
not, has wished he could get some amusement out 
of him as a remuneration for the affliction of his 
society. We accomplished this latter matter, and if 
our experience can be made useful to others they 
are welcome to it. 

Guides know about enough English to tangle 
everything up so that a man can make neither head 
nor tail of it. They know their story by heart — the 
history of every statue, painting, cathedral^ or other 



^68 The Innocents Abroad 

wonder they show you. They know it and tell it m 
a parrot would — and if you interrupt, and throw 
them off the track, they have to go back and begin 
over again. All their lives long, they are employed 
in showing strange things to foreigners and listening 
to their bursts of admiration. It is human nature 
to take delight in exciting admiration. It is what 
prompts children to say ** smart" things, and do 
absurd ones, and in other ways ** show off** when 
company is present. It is what makes gossips turn 
out in rain and storm to go and be the first to tell a 
startling bit of news. Think, then, what a passion 
it becomes with a guide, whose privilege it is, every 
day, to show to strangers wonders that throw them 
into perfect ecstasies of admiration! He gets so 
that he could not by any possibility live in a soberer 
atmosphere. After we discovered this, we never 
went into ecstasies any more — we never admired 
anything — we never showed any but impassible 
faces and stupid indifference in the presence of the 
sublimest wonders a guide had to display. We had 
found their weak point. We have made good use of 
it ever since. We have made some of those people 
savage, at times, but we have never lost our own 
serenity. 

The doctor asks the questions, generally, because 
he can keep his countenance, and look more like an 
inspired idiot, and throw more imbecility into the 
tone of his voice than any man that lives. It comes 
natural to him. 



The Innocents Abroad 369 

The guides in Genoa are delighted to secure an 
American party, because Americans so much won- 
der, and deal so much in sentiment and emotion 
before any relic of Columbus. Our guide there 
fidgeted about as if he had swallowed a spring mat- 
tress. He was full of animation — full of impa- 
tience. He said : 

** Come wis me, genteelmen ! — come ! I show you 
ze letter writing by Christopher Colombo ! — write 
it himself ! — write it wis his own hand ! — - come ! ' '' 

He took us to the municipal palace. After much 
impressive fumbling of keys and opening of locks, 
the stained and aged document was spread before 
us. The guide's eyes sparkled. He danced about 
us and tapped the parchment with his finger ; 

*'What I tell you, genteelmen! Is it not so? 
See ! handwriting Christopher Colombo ! — write it 
himself!** 

We looked indifferent — unconcerned. The doc- 
tor examined the document very deliberately, during 
a painful pause. Then he said, without any show of 
interest : 

* * Ah — • Ferguson — what — what did you say was 
the name of the party who wrote this?" 

** Christopher Colombo! ze great Christopher 
Colombo!" 

Another deliberate examination, 

** Ah — did he write it himself, or — or how?'' 

** He write it himself! — Christopher Colombo' 
He's own handwriting, write by himself!'* 
2A* 



370 The Innocents Abroad 

Then the doctor laid the document down and said ; 

'*Why, I have seen boys in America only four- 
teen years old that could write better than that." 

** But zis is ze great Christo ** 

** I don't care who it is! It*s the worst writing I 
ever saw. Now you mustn't think you can impose 
on us because we are strangers. We are not fools, 
by a good deal. If you have got any specimens of 
penmanship of real merit, trot them out ! — and if 
you haven't, drive on!'* 

We drove on. The guide was considerably shaken 
up, but he made one more venture. He had some- 
thing which he thought would overcome us. He said : 

**Ah, genteelmen, you come wis me! I show 
you beautiful, oh, magnificent bust Christopher 
Colombo ! — splendid, grand, magnificent !'* 

He brought us before the beautiful bust — for it 
was beautiful — and sprang back and struck an 
attitude : 

**Ah, look, genteelmen! — beautiful, grand, — 
bust Christopher Colombo ! — beautiful bust, beau- 
tiful pedestal!" 

The doctor put up his eyeglass — procured for 
such occasions : 

'*Ah — what did you say this gentleman's name 
was?" 

* * Christopher Colombo ! — ze great Christopher 
Colombo!" 

* Christopher Colombo — the great Cliristophei 
Colombo Well, what did he do?'' 



The Innocents Abroad 371 

*• Discover America ! — discover America, oh, ze 
devil!" 

"Discover America. No — that statement will 
hardly wash. We are just from America ourselves . 
We heard nothing about it. Christopher Colombo 
— pleasant name — is — is he dead?" 

** Oh, corpo di Baccho! — three hundred year T ' 

••What did he die of?" 

*• I do not know ! — I cannot tell." 

*• Small-pox, think?" 

*• I do not know, genteelmen! — I do not know 
what he die of!" 

'• Measles, likely?" 

'•Maybe — maybe — I do not know — ^I think 
he die of somethings." 

*• Parents living?" 

•• Im-posseeble!" 

••Ah — which is the bust and which is the 
pedestal?" 

•• Santa Maria ! — zis ze bust ! — zis ze pedestal !" 

••Ah, I see, I see — happy combination — very 
happy combination, indeed. Is — is this the first 
time this gentleman was ever on a bust?" 

That joke was lost on the foreigner — guides can- 
not master the subtleties of the American joke. 

We have made it interesting for this Roman guide. 
Yesterday we spent three or four hours in the Vati- 
can again, that wonderful world of curiosities. We 
came very near expressing interest, sometimes-- 
even admiration — it was very hard to keep from it 



572 The Innocents Abroad 

We succeeded though, . Nobody else ever did, ir 
the Vatican museums. The guide was bewildered — 
nonplussed. He walked his legs off, nearly, hunt- 
ing up extraordinary things, and exhausted all his 
ingenuity on us, but it was a failure; we never 
showed an)'' interest in anything. He had reserved 
what he considered to be his greatest wonder till the 
last — a royal Egyptian mummy, the best-preserved 
in the world, perhaps. He took us there. He felt 
so sure, this time, that some of his old enthusiasm 
came back to him : 

** See, genteelmen ! — Mummy ! Mummy !** 

The eyeglass came up as calmly, as deliberately 
as ever. 

"Ah, — Ferguson — what did I understand you 
to say the gentleman's name was?" 

' ' Name ? — he got no name ! — Mummy f ■ — 
Gyptian mummy!'* 

" Yes, yes. Born here?" 

' * No ! * Gyptian mummy ! ' ' 
' Ah, just so. Frenchman, I presume?" 

" No ! — not Frenchman, not Roman ! — born in 
Egypta!" 

** Born in Egypta. Never heard of Egypta be- 
fore. Foreign locality, likely. Mummy — mummy. 
How calm he is — how self-possessed. Is, ah — is 
he dead?" 

" Oh, sacre bleUy been dead three thousan' year !" 

The doctor turned on him savagely: 

"' Here, now, what do you mean by such conduct 




"is he dead ? 



The Innocents Abroad 373 

as this ! Playing us for Chinamen because we arr 
strangers and trying to learn! Trying to impose 
your vile second-hand carcasses on us! — thunder 
and lightning, I've a notion to — to — if you've got 
a YiicQ fresh corpse, fetch him out I — or, by George, 
we'll brain you!" 

We make it exceedingly interesting for this 
Frenchman. However, he has paid us back, partly, 
without knowing it. He came to the hotel this 
morning to ask if we were up, and he endeavored as 
well as he could to describe us, so that the landlord 
would know which persons he meant. He finished 
with the casual remark that we were lunatics. The 
observation was so innocent and so honest that it 
amounted to a very good thing for a guide to say. 

There is one remark (already mentioned) which 
never yet has failed to disgust these guides. We 
use it always, when we can think of nothing else to 
say. After they have exhausted their enthusiasm 
pointing out to us and praising the beauties of some 
ancient bronze image or broken-legged statue, we 
look at it stupidly and in silence for five, ten, fifteen 
minutes — as long as we can hold out, in fact — and 
then ask: 

^*Is-.ishedead?'* 

That conquers the serenest of them It is not 
what they are looking for — especially a new guide,. 
Our Roman Ferguson is the most patient, unsuspect- 
ing, long-suffering subject we have had yet. We 
shall be sorry to part with him . We have enjoyed 



374 The Innocents Abroad 

his society very much. We trust he has enjoyed 
ours, but we are harassed with doubts. 

We have been in the catacombSc It was like 
going down into a very deep cellar, only it was a 
cellar which had no end to it. The narrow passages 
are roughly hewn in the rock, and on each hand, as 
you pass along, the hollowed shelves are carved out, 
from three to fourteen deep; each held a corpse 
once. There are names, and Christian symbols, and 
prayers, or sentences expressive of Christian hopes, 
carved upon nearly every sarcophagus. The dates 
belong away back in the dawn of the Christian era, 
of course. Here, in these holes in the ground, the 
first Christians sometimes burrowed to escape perse- 
cution. They crawled out at night to get food, but 
remained under cover in the daytime. The priest 
told us that St. Sebastian lived under ground for 
some time while he was being hunted ; he went out 
one day, and the soldiery discovered and shot him 
to death with arrows. Five or six of the early 
Popes — those who reigned about sixteen hundred 
years ago — held their papal courts and advised with 
their clergy in the bowels of the earth. During 
seventeen years— -from A, D, 235 to A. D. 252 — 
the Popes did not appear above ground. Four were 
raised to the great office during that period. Four 
years apiece, or thereabouts. It is very suggestive 
of the unhealthiness of underground graveyards as 
places of residence c One Pope afterward spent his 
entire pontificate in the catacombs — eight years 



The Innocents Abroad f 75 

Another was discovered in them and murdered in 
the episcopal chair. There was no satisfaction in 
being a Pope in those days. There were too many 
annoyances. There are one hundred and sixty 
catacombs under Rome, each with its maze ot 
narrow passages crossing and recrossing each othet 
and each passage walled to the top with scooped 
graves its entire length. A careful estimate makes 
the length of the passages of all the catacombs com- 
bined foot up nine hundred miles, and their graves 
number seven millions. We did not go through aD 
the passages of all the catacombs. We were very 
anxious to do it, and made the necessary arrange- 
ments, but our too limited time obliged us to give 
up the idea. So we only groped through the dismal 
labyrinth of St. Calixtus, under the Church of St- 
Sebastian. In the various catacombs are small 
chapels rudely hewn in the stones, and here the 
early Christians often held their religious services by 
dim, ghostly lights. Think of mass and a sermon 
away down in those tangled caverns under ground ! 
In the catacombs were buried St. Cecilia, St, 
Agnes, and several other of the most celebrated of 
the saints. In the catacomb of St. Calixtus, S^: 
Bridget used to remain long hours in holy contem- 
plation, and St. Charles Borromeo was wont to 
spend whole nights in prayer there. It was also the 
scene of a very marvelous thing, 

** Here the heart of St. Philip Neri was so inflamed vdth divine love 
as to burst his ribs.*' 



376 The Innocents Abroad 

I find that grave statement in a book published in 
New York in 1858, and written by ** Rev. William 
H. Neligan, LL.D., M.A., Trinity College, Dub- 
'^in; Member of the Archaeological Society of Great 
Britain.'* Therefore, I believe it. Otherwise, I 
could not. Under other circumstances I should 
have felt a curiosity to know what Philip had for 
dinner. 

This author puts my credulity on its mettle every 
now and then. He tells of one St. Joseph Cala* 
sanctius whose house in Rome he visited ; he visited 
only the house — the priest has been dead two hun- 
dred years. He says the Virgin Mary appeared to 
this saint Then he continues : 

** His tongue and his heart, which were found after nearly a century 
to be whole, when the body was disinterred before his canonization, are 
still preserved in a glass case, and after two centuries the heart is still 
whole. When the French troops came to Rome, and when Pius VII 
was carried away prisoner, blood dropped from it.'* 

To read that in a book written by a monk far back 
in the Middle Ages, would surprise no one ; it would 
sound natural and proper; but when it is seriously 
stated in the middle of the nineteenth century, by a 
man of finished education, an LL.D., M.A., and 
an archaeological magnate, it sounds strangely 
enough. Still, I would gladly change my unbelief 
for Neligan 's faith, and let him make the conditions 
as hard as he pleased. 

The old gentleman's undoubting, unquestioning 
Simplicity has a rare freshness about it in these 



The Innocents Abroad 377 

matter-of-fact railroading and telegraphing days. 
Hear him, concerning the Church of Ara Coeli : 

** In the roof of the church, directly above the high altar, is en- 
graved, *• Regina Cccli Icetare Alleluia."* In the sixth century Rome 
was visited by a fearful pestilence. Gregory the Great urged the people 
to do penance, and a general procession was fonned. It was to proceed 
from Ara CoeU to St. Peter's. As it passed before the mole of Adrian, 
now the Castle of St. Angelo, the sound of heavenly voices was heard 
singing (it was Easter mom ) — * Regina Coeli^ hetare ! alleluia I 
quia quern meruisti portare^ allehiia ! resurrexit sicut dixit ; 
alleluia ! ' The Pontiff, carrying in his hands the portrait of the Virgin 
(which is over the high altar and is said to have been painted by St, 
Luke), answered, with the astonished people, ' Ora pro nobis Deum,^ 
allehiia ! ' At the same time an angel was seen to put up a sword in 
a scabbard, and the pestilence ceased on the same day. There are four 
circumstances which confirjn* this miracle : the annual procession which 
takes place in the western church on the feast of St. Mark: the statue 
of St. Michael, placed on the mole of Adrian, which has since that 
time been called the Castle of St. Angelo ; the antiphon Regina Coeli. 
which the Catholic church sings during paschal time ; and the inscrip 
tion in the church." 



♦ The italics are mine— M. T. 



VOLUME II. 



To my most patient reader and most charitable 
critic, my aged Mother, this volume is 
affectionately inscribed. 



THE 

Innocents Abroad 

OR 

THE NEW PILGRIMS' PROGRESS 



BEING SOME ACCOUNT OF THE STEAMSHIP QUAKER CITY'S 
PLEASURE EXCURSION TO EUROPE AND THE HOLY LAND 



By mark twain 

(Samuel L. Clemens) 
IN TWO VOLUMES^ 

VOL. II 




HARPER 6- BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
NEW YORK AND LONDON 



Copyright, 1869, 1897, and 1899 
by The American Publishing Company 



Copyright, 191 1, by Clara Gabrilowitsch 



Printed in the United States of America 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



A CORNER IN THE CAPUCHIN CONVENT . . Frofdispiect 



OUR PARTY OF EIGHT . . . Peter NeweU . , 213 
THE TOMB OF ADAM . . • . Peter NeweU , . 337 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

Oie Capuchin Convent — A Festive Company of the Dead — The 
Great Vatican Museum — Papal Protection of Art — Scale of 
Rank of the Holy Personages in Rome ,.>,:. * .. . 9 

CHAPTER II. 
Naples — Annunciation — Ascent of Mount Vesuvius — Monkish 
Miracles — The Stranger and the Hackman — Night View of 
Naples from Mountain — Ascent of Vesuvius Continued . . 23 

CHAPTER III. 
Ascent of Vesuvius Continued — ■ Celebrated Localities in the Bay of 
Naples — Petrified Sea of Lava — The Ascent Continued — 
The Summit Reached — The Crater — Descent of Vesuvius . 30 

CHAFFER IV. 
The Buried City of Pompeii — The Judgment Seat — Desolation— 
Footprints of the Departed — Skeletons Preserved by the Ashes 
— The Brave Martyr to Duty — The Perishable Nature of Fame 43 

CHAPTER V. 
Stromboli — Sicily by Moonlight — Skirting the Isles of Greece— 
Athens — The Acropolis — Among the Glories of the Past — 
A World of Ruined Sculpture — Famous Localities • • • • 55 

CHAPTER VI. 
Modem Greece — The Archipelago and the Dardanelles — Foot- 
prints of History — Constantinople — Great Mosque — The 
Thousand and One Columns — Grand Bazaar of Stamboul 75 

CHAPTER VII. 
Scarcity of Morals and Whisky — Slave-Girl Market Report — 
The Slandered Dogs of Constantinople — No More Turkish 
LunchesDesired — The Turkish Bath Fraud . . . . » , gn 



fi Contend 

CHAPTER VIIL 

rhrough the Bosporus and the Black Sea — •* Far- Away Moses" 

— Melancholy Sebastopol — Hospitably Received in Russia- 
Relic Hunting — How Travelers Form "Cabinets" ^ , . io8 

CHAPTER IX. 

Nine Thousand Miles East — Imitation American Town in Russia 

— Gratitude that Came Too Late — To Visit the Autocrat of 
All the Russias , 115 

CHAPTER X. 
Summer Home of Royalty — Reception by the Emperor — At the ' 
Grand Duke's — A Charming Villa — The Governor-General's 
Visit to the Ship — Aristocratic Visitors ,« > » » « • • 120 

CHAPTER XI. 
Return to Constantinople — The SaiJors Burlesque the Imperial Vis- 
itors — Ancient Smyrna — The " Oriental Splendor" Fraud — 
Pilgrim Prophecy-Savans — Sociable Armenian Girls . . .137 

CHAPTER XII. 
Smyrna's Lions — The Martyr Polycarp — The *' Seven Churches" 

— Remains of the Six Smyrnas — Mysterious Oyster Mine — 

A MiUerite Tradition — A Railroad Out of its Sphere . « , I49 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Journeying toward Ancient Ephesus — Ancient Ayassalook — The 
Villainous Donkey — Fantastic Procession — Bygone Magnifi- 
cence — Fragments of History — Legend of Seven Sleepers . 1 56 

CHAPTER XIV, 
Approaching Holy Land ! — The " Shrill Note of Preparation " — 
The " Long Route " Adopted — In S)nria — Something about 
Beirout — Outfits — Hideous Horseflesh — Pilgrim " Style '* , 169 

CHAPTER XV. 

"Jacksonville,** in the Mountains of Lebanon — The Peculiar 
Steed, "Jericho** — The Pilgrim's Progress — Bible Scenes, 
Mount Hermon, Joshua's Battlefields, etc. — Tomb of Noah , 179 

CHAPTER XVI. 
]?atriarchal Customs — Magnificent Baalbec — Description of Ruins 
•=— Scribbling Smiths and Joneses — Pilgrim Fidelity to the 
Letter of the Law — The Revered Fountain of Balaam's Ass . iSi 



Contents ^i 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Extracts from Note-Book -- Mahomet's Paradise — Beautiful Da 
mascus— The *' Street called Straight"— The Christian Mas- 
sacre — The House of Naaman — The Horrors of Leprosy . 195- 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Cholera— Hot— Tomb of Nimrod— The Stateliest Ruin of All — 
More " Specimen " Hunting — Cesarea-Philippi — People the 
Disciples Knew — Sentimental Horse Idolatry of the Arabs .212 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Dan — Bashan — Gennesaret — Scraps of History — Character of 
the Country — Bedouin Shepherds — Mr. Grimes' Bedouins — 
A Battleground of Joshua — Barak's Battle — Desolation . . 229 

CHAPTER XX. 
Jack's Adventure — The Story of Joseph — The Sacred Lake of 
Gennesaret — Enthusiasm of the Pilgrims — Why We Did not 
Sail on Galilee — Capernaum — Journeying toward Magdala . 24 1 

CHAPTER XXI. 
Curious vSpecimens of Art and Architecture — Public Reception of 
tlie Pilgrims — Mary Magdalen's House — Tiberias and its 
Inhabitants— The Sacred Sea of Galilee — Galilee by Night . 26c 

CHAPTER XXII. 
The Ancient Baths — The Last Battle of the Cmsades — Mount 
Tabor — What one Sees from its Top — A Memory of a Won- 
derful Garden — The House of Deborah the Prophetess . . 274 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
Toward Nazareth — Bitten by a Camel — Grotto of the Annuncia- 
tion, Nazareth — Joseph's Workshop — A Sacred Bowlder — 
The Fountain of the Virgin — Literary Curiosities • • • . 288 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

The Boyhood of the Saviour — Home of the Witch of Endor — 
Nain — The •* Free Son of the Desert " — Ancient Jezreel — 
Jehu's Achievements — Samaria and its Famous Siege . • • 301 



viii Contents 

CHAPTER XXV, 
Shechem — The Tomb of Joseph — Jacob's Well — ShUoh — Ja- 
cob's Ladder — Ramah, Beroth, the Tomb of Samuel, the 
Fountain of Beira — Within the Walls of Jerusalem • , • • 319 

CHAPTER XXVI. 
Description of Jerusalem — Church of the Holy Sepulchre — The 
Grave of Jesus — Monkish Impostures — Grave of Adam — 
Tomb of Melchizedek — The Place of the Crucifixion , . . 327 

CHAPTER XXVII, 
The " Sorrowful Way " — Solomon's Temple — Mosque of Omar 

— Judgment Seat of David and Saul — The Pool of SUoam— 
The Garden of Gethsemane ...,>^,>««. 348 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 
Bethany — " Bedouins ! " — Ancient Jericho — The Dead Sea — 
The Holy Hermits — Gazelles — Birthplace of the Saviour, 
Bethlehem — Church of the Nativity — Return to Jerusalem . 364 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

Departure from Jerusalem — Samson — The Plain of Sharon — 
Joppa — House of Simon the Tanner — The Long Pilgrimage 
Ended — Character of Palestine Scenery — The Curse • . • 388 

CHAPTER XXX. 
•• Home ** in a Pleasure-ship — Jack in Costume — His Father's 
Parting Advice — Egypt — In Alexandria — Scenes in Grand 
Cairo — ■ Shepherd's Hotel — Preparing for the Pyramids . . 394 

CHAPTER XXXI. 
** Recherche " Donkeys — Egyptian Modesty — Moses in the Bul- 
rushes — Place where Holy Family Sojourned — The Pyramids 

— " Backsheesh I " — Majestic Sphynx — Grand Old Egypt . 404 

CHAPTER XXXII. 
Homeward Bound — A Demoralized Note-book — Old Spain — 
Cadiz — Beautiful Madeiras — Delightful Bermudas — An Eng- 
lish Welcome — Our First Accident — At Home — Amen , 425 

CHAPTER XXXIIL 
fhankless Devotion — • A Newspaper Valedictory — Conclusion . . 429 



THE INNOCENTS ABROAD 



CHAPTER L 

rROM the sanguinary sports of the Holy Inquisi- 
tion ; the slaughter of the Coliseum ; and the 
dismal tombs of the Catacombs, I naturally pass to 
the picturesque horrors of the Capuchin Convent. 
We stopped a moment in a small chapel In the church 
to admire a picture of St. Michael vanquishing Satan 
— ' a picture which is so beautiful tliat T cannot but 
think it belongs to the reviled ''* Renaissance y' not- 
withstanding I believe they told us one of the ancient 
old masters painted it — and then we descended into 
the vast vault underneath. 

Here was a spectacle for sensitive nerves ! Evi- 
dently the old masters had been at work in this place. 
There were six divisions in the apartment, and each 
division was ornamented with a style of decoration 
peculiar to itself — and these decorations were in 
every instance formed of human bones ! There were 
shapely arches, built wholly of thigh bones; there 
were startling pyramids, built wholly of grinning 
skulls; there were quaint architectural structures of 
various kinds, built of shin bones and the bones of 
the arm; on the wall were elaborate frescoes, whose 



10 The Innocents Abroad 

curving vines were made of knotted human vertebrae ; 
whose delicate tendrils were made of sinews and ten- 
dons ; whose flowers were formed of knee-caps and 
toe-nails. Every lasting portion of the human frame 
was represented in these intricate designs (they were 
by Michael Angelo, I think), and there was a careful 
finish about the work, and an attention to details that 
betrayed the artist's love of his labors as well as his 
schooled ability. I asked the good-natured monk 
who accompanied us, who did this? And he said, 
'* We did it *' — - meaning himself and his brethren up 
stairs. I could see that the old friar took a high 
pride in his curious show. We made him talka- 
tive by exhibiting an interest we never betrayed 
to guid^?. 

'* Who were these people? *' 

" ' We — up stairs — Monks of the Capuchin order — 
my brethren/* 

' * How many departed monks were required to 
upholster these six parlors? " 

** These are the bones of four thousand.'* 

'• It took a long time to get enough? " 

■' Many, many centuries.*' 
Their different parts are well separated — skulls 
in one room, legs in another, ribs in another — there 
would be stirring times here for a while if the last 
trump should blow. Some of the brethren might 
get hold of the wrong leg, in the confusion, and the 
wrong skull, and find themselves limping, and look- 
ing through eyes that were wider apart or closer 



The innocents Abroad 11 

together than they were used to= You cannot teD 
any of these parties apart, I suppose? *' 

'* Oh, yes, I know many of them/* 

He put his finger on a skuFi. '* This was Brothet 
Anselmo — dead three hundred years — -a good 
man.*' 

Retouched another. '"This was Brother Alex- 
ander — dead two hundred and eighty years. This 
was Brother Carlo — dead about as long." 

Then he took a skull and held it in his hand, and 
looked reflectively upon it, after the manner of the 
grave-digger when he discourses of Yorick. 

**This»** he said, **was Brother Thomas. He 
was a young prince., the scion of a proud house that 
traced its lineage back to the grand old days of Rome 
well nigh two thousand years ago He loved beneath 
his estate. His family persecuted him ; persecuted 
the girl, as welL They drove her from Rome; he 
followed ; he sought her far and wide ; he found no 
trace of her. He came back and offered his broken 
heart at our altar and his weary life to the service of 
God. But look you Shortly his father died, and 
likewise his mother The girl returned, rejoicing. 
She sought everywhere for him whose eyes had used 
to look tenderly into hers out of this poor skull, 
but she could not find him. At last, in this coarse 
garb we wear, she recognized him in the street. He 
knew her. It was too late. He fell where he stood. 
They took him up and brought him here. He never 
spoke afterward. Within the week he died. Voxt 



12 The Innocents Abroad 

can see the color of his hair — faded, somewhat — 
by this thin shred that ch'ngs still to the temple.. 
This [taking up a thigh bone] was his. The 
veins of this leaf in the decorations over your head, 
were his finger-joints, a hundred and fifty years ago." 
This business-like way of illustrating a touching 
story of the heart by laying the several fragments of 
the lover before us and naming them, was as gro- 
tesque a performance, and as ghastly, as any I ever 
witnessed. I hardly knew whether to smile or shud- 
der. There are nerves and muscles in our frames 
whose functions and whose methods of working it 
seems a sort of sacrilege to describe by cold physio- 
logical names and surgical technicalities, and the 
monk's talk suggested to me something of this kind. 
Fancy a surgeon, with his nippers lifting tendons, 
muscles, and such things into view, out of the com- 
plex machinery of a corpse, and observing, ** Now 
this little nerve quivers — the vibration is imparted 
to this muscle — from here it is passed to this fibrous 
substance ; here its ingredients are separated by the 
chemical action of the blood — one part goes to the 
heart and thrills it with what is popularly termed 
emotion, another part follows this nerve to the brain 
and communicates intelligence of a startling charac- 
ter — the third part glides along this passage and 
touches the spring connected with the fluid recep- 
tacles that lie in the rear of the eye. Thus, by this 
simple and beautiful process, the party is informed 
that his mother is dead, and he weepSc" Horrible! 



The Innocents Abroad 13 

I asked the monk if all the brethren up stairs ex- 
pected to be put in this place whes they died He 
answered quietly: 

•* We must all lie here at last/* 

See what one can accustom himself to. The re- 
flection that he must some day be taken apart like an 
engine or a clock, or like a house whose owner is 
gone, and worked up into arches and pyramids and 
hideous frescoes, did not distress this monk in the 
least. I thought he even looked as if he were think- 
ing, with complacent vanity, that his own skull would 
look well on top of the heap and his own ribs add a 
charm to the frescoes which possibly they lacked at 
present. 

Here and there, in ornamental alcoves, stretched 
upon beds of bones, lay dead and dried-up monks, 
with lank frames dressed in the black robes one sees 
ordinarily upon priests. We examined one closely. 
The skinny hands were clasped upon the breast; 
two lusterless tufts of hair stuck to the skull; the 
skin was brown and shrunken ; it stretched tightly over 
the cheek bones and made them stand out sharply; 
the crisp dead eyes were deep in the sockets; the 
nostrils were painfully prominent, the end of the 
nose being gone ; the lips had shriveled away from 
the yellow teeth ; and brought down to us through 
the circling years, and petrified there, was a weird 
laugh a full century old ! 

It was the jolliest laugh, but yet the most dreadful, 
that one can imagine. Surely. I thought, it must 



«4 The Innocents Abroad 

have been a most extraordinary joke this veterat: 
produced with his latest breath, that he has not got 
done laughing at it yet- At this moment I saw that 
the old instinct was strong upon the boys, and I said 
we had better hurry to St, Peter's. They were try- 
ing to keep from asking, ** Is — is he dead? ** 

It makes me dizzy to think of the Vatican — of 
«ts wilderness of statues, paintings, and curiosities of 
every description and every age. The ** old 
masters" (especially in sculpture) fairly swarm, 
there. I cannot write about the Vatican, I think 
\ shall never remember Anything I saw there dis- 
tinctly but the mummies, and the Transfiguration, 
by Raphael, and some other things it is not necessary 
to mention now. I shall remember the Transfigura- 
tion partly because it was placed in a room almost 
by itself; partly because it is acknowledged by all 
to be the first oil-painting in the world ; and partly 
because it was wonderfully beautiful, The colors 
are fresh and rich, the ** expression," I am told, is 
fine, the ** feeling** is lively, the *'tone*' is good, 
the ** depth'* is profound, and the width is about 
four and a half feet, I should judge. It is a picture 
that really holds one's attention ; its beauty is fasci- 
nating. It is fine enough to be a Re7iaissance. A 
remark I made awhile ago suggests a thought — and 
a hope^ Is it not possible that the reason I find such 
charms in this picture is because it is out of the crazy 
chaos of the galleries? If some of the others were 
set apart, might not they be beautiful ? If this were 



Tbe Innocents Abroad 15 

set in the midst of the tempest of pictures one finds 
in the vast galleries of the Roman palaces, would I 
think it so handsome? If, up to this time, I had 
seen only one ** old master*' in each palace, instead 
of acres and acres of walls and ceilings fairly papered 
with them, might I not have a more civilized opinion 
of the old masters than i have now? I think so. 
When I v/as a schoolboy and was to have a new 
knife, I could not make up my mind as to which was 
the prettiest in the showcase, and I did not think 
any of them were particularly pretty ; and so I chose 
with a heavy heart. But when I looked at my pur 
chase, at home, where no glittering blades came into 
competition with it, I was astonished to see how 
handsome it was. To this day my new hats look 
better out of the shop than they did in it with other 
new hats. It begins to dawn upon me, now, that 
possibly, what I have been taking for uniform ugli- 
ness in the galleries m?y be uniform beauty after alL 
I honestly hope it is, to others, but certainly it is not 
to me. Perhaps the reason I used to enjoy going to 
the Academy of Fine Arts in New York was because 
there were but a few hundred paintings in it, and it 
did not surfeit me to go through the list I suppose 
the Academy was bacon and beans in the Forty-Mile 
Desert, and a European gallery is a state dinner ot 
thirteen courses : One leaves no sign after him of 
the one dish, but the thirteen frighten away his 
appetite and give him no satisfaction. 

There is one thing T am certain of, though. With 



i6 The Innocents Abroad 

all the Michael Angelos, the Raphaels, the Guides, 
and the other old masters, the sublime history of 
Rome remains unpainted ! They painted Virgins 
enough, and Popes enough, and saintly scare-crows 
enough, to people Paradise, almost, and these things 
are all they did paint. ** Nero fiddhng o'er burning 
Rome," the assassination of Caesar, the stirring spec- 
tacle of a hundred thousand people bending forward 
with rapt interest, in the Coliseum, to see two skill- 
ful gladiators hacking away each others* lives, a tiger 
springing upon a kneeling martyr • — these and a thou- 
sand other matters which we read of with a living 
interest, must be sought for only in books — not 
among the rubbish left by the old masters — who are 
no more, I have the satisfaction of informing the 
public. 

They did paint, and they did carve in marble, one 
historical scene, and one only (of any great historical 
consequence). And what was it and why did they 
choose it, particularly? It was the Rape of the 
Sabines, and they chose it for the legs and busts. 

I like to look at statues, however, and I like to 
look at pictures, also — even of monks looking up in 
sacred ecstasy, and monks looking down in m.edita- 
tion, and monks skirmishing for something to eat — 
and therefore I drop ill-nature to thank the papal 
government for so jealously guarding and so indus- 
triously gathering up these things ; and for permit- 
ting me, a stranger and not an entirely friendly one^ 
to roam at will and unmolested among them, charg 



The Innocents Abroad 17 

irig me nothing, and only requiring that I shall be- 
have myself simply as well as I ought to behave in 
any other man's house. I thank the Holy Father 
right heartily, and I wish him long life and plenty of 
happiness. 

The Popes have long been the patrons and pre- 
servers of art, just as our new, practical Republic is 
the encourager and upholder of mechanics. In their 
Vatican is stored up all that is curious and beautiful 
in art; in our Patent Office is hoarded all that is 
curious or useful in mechanics. When a man invents 
a new style of horse-collar or discovers a new and 
superior method of telegraphing, our government 
issues a patent to him that is worth a fortune ; when 
a man digs up an ancient statue in the Campagna, 
the Pope gives him a fortune in gold coin. We can 
make something of a guess at a man's character by 
the style of nose he carries on his face. The Vati- 
can and the Patent Office are governmental noses, 
and they bear a deal of character about them. 

The guide showed us a colossal statue of Jupiter, 
in the Vatican, which he said looked so damaged 
and rusty — so like the God of the Vagabonds — 
because it had but recently been dug up in the Cam- 
pagna. He asked how much we supposed this 
Jupiter was worth. I replied, with intelligent 
promptness, that he was probably worth about four 
dollars — may be four and a half. ** A hundred thou- 
sand dollars!** Ferguson said. Ferguson saidj 
further, that the Pope permits no ancient work of 



18 The Innocents Abroad 

this kind to leave his dominions. He appoints a 
commission to examine discoveries like this and re- 
port upon the value ; then the Pope pays the discov- 
erer one-half of that assessed value and takes the 
statue. He said this Jupiter was dug from a field 
which had just been bought for thirty-six thousand 
dollars, so the first crop was a good one for the new 
farmer. I do not know whether Ferguson always 
tells the truth or not, but I suppose he does. I know 
that an exorbitant export duty is exacted upon all 
pictures painted by the old masters, in order to dis- 
courage the sale of those inr the private collections. 
I am satisfied, also, that genuine old masters hardly 
exist at all, in America, because the cheapest and 
most insignificant of them are valued at the price of 
a fine farm. I proposed to buy a small trifle of a 
Raphael, myself, but the price of it was eighty thou- 
sand dollars, the export duty would have made it 
considerably over a hundred, and so I studied on it 
awhile and concluded not to take it, 

I wish here to mention an inscription I have seen, 
before I forget it : 

** Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth TO 
MEN OF GOOD WILL!*' It is not good scripture, 
but it is sound Catholic and human nature. 

This IS in letters of gold around the apsis of a 
mosaic group at the side of the scala santUy church 
of St. John Lateran, the Mother and Mistress of all 
the Catholic churches of the world. The group 
represents the Saviour, St. Peter, Pope Leo, St. Sil- 



the Innocents Abroad 19 

vester, Constantine, and Charlemagne. Peter is 
giving the pallium to the Pope, and a standard to 
Charlemagne. The Saviour is giving the keys to 
St. Silvester, and a standard to Constantine, No 
prayer is offered to the Saviour, who seems to be of 
little importance anywhere in Rome ; but an inscrip- 
tion below says, ** Blessed PeteVy give life to Pope Leo 
and victory to King Charles ^ It does not say,, 
^'^ Intercede for uSy through the Saviour, with the 
Father, for this boon," but ** Blessed VettXygive it 
us.'' 

In all seriousness — without meaning to be frivo- 
lous — without meaning to be irreverent, and more 
than all, without meaning to be blasphemous, — I 
state as my simple deduction from the things I have 
seen and the things I have heard, that the Holy 
Personages rank thus in Rome : 

First — **The Mother of God "—• otherwise the 
Virgin Mary. 

Second — The Deity 

Third — Peter. 

Fourth — Some twelve or fifteen canonized Popes 
and martyrs. 

Fifth — Jesus Christ the Saviour - (but always as 
an infant in arms). 

I may be wrong in this — my judgment errs often^, 
just as is the case with other men's — but \i i^ my 
judgment, be it good or bad. 

Just here I will mention something that seems 
curious to me. There are no *' Christ's Churches ** 



2C The innocents Abroad 

in Rome, and no ** Churches of the Holy Ghost," 
that I can discover. There are some four hundred 
churches, but about a fourth of them seem to be 
named for the Madonna and St. Peter. There are 
so many named for Mary that they have to be dis- 
tinguished by all sorts of affixes, if I understand the 
matter rightly. Then we have churches of St. 
Louis; St. Augustine; St. Agnes; St. Calixtus; 
St. Lorenzo in Lucina; St. Lorenzo in Damaso; 
St. Cecilia; St. Athanasius; St. Philip Neri; St. 
Catherine ; St. Domenico, and a multitude of lesser 
saints whose names are not familiar in the world — 
and away down, clear out of the list of the churches, 
comes a couple of hospitals : one of them^ is named 
for the Saviour and the other for the Holy Ghost! 

Day after day and night after night we have wan- 
dered among the crumbling wonders of Rome ; day 
after day and night after night we have fed upon the 
dust and decay of five-and-twenty centuries — have 
brooded over them by day and dreamt of them by 
night till sometimes we seemed moldering away our- 
selves, and growing defaced and cornerless, and liable 
at any moment to fall a prey to some antiquary and 
be patched in the legs, and ** restored " with an un- 
seemly nose, and labeled wrong and dated wrong, 
and set up in the Vatican for poets to drivel about 
and vandals to scribble their names on forever and 
forevermore. 

But the surest way to stop writing about Rome is 
to stop. I wished to write a real ** guide-book " 



The Innocents Abroad 21 

chapter on this fascinating city, but I could not do 
it, because I have felt all the time like a boy in s. 
candy-shop — there was everything to choose from, 
and yet no choice. I have drifted along hopelessly 
for a hundred pages of manuscript without knowing 
where to commence. I will not commence at alL 
Our passports have been examined. We will go tc 
Naples. 



CHAPTER IL 

THE ship is lying here in the harbor of Naples — - 
quarantined. She has been here several days 
and will remain several more. We that came by rail 
from Rome have escaped this misfortune. Of 
course no one is allowed to go on board the ship, or 
come ashore from her. She is a prison, now. The 
passengers probably spend the long, blazing days 
looking out from under the awnings at Vesuvius and 
the beautiful city — and in swearing. Think of ten 
days of this sort of pastime ! - — We go out every day 
in a boat and request them to come ashore. It 
soothes them. We lie ten steps from the ship and 
tell them how splendid the city is ; and how much 
better the hotel fare is here than anywhere else in 
Europe ; and how cool it is ; and what frozen con- 
tinents of ice-cream there are ; and what a time we 
are having cavorting about the country and sailing 
to the islands in the Bay. This tranquilizes them. 

ASCENT OF VESUVIUS. 

I shall remember our trip to Vesuvius for many a 
day — partly because of its sight-seeing experiences, 



The Innocents Abroad 23 

but chiefly on account of the fatigue of the journey. 
Two or three of us had been resting ourselves among 
the tranquil and beautiful scenery of the island of 
Ischia, eighteen miles out in the harbor, for two 
days; we called it "resting," but I do not remember 
now what the resting consisted of, for when we got 
back to Naples we had not slept for forty-eight 
hours. We were just about to go to bed early in the 
evening, and catch up on some of the sleep we had 
lost, when we heard of this Vesuvius expedition. 
There were to be eight of us in the party, and we were 
to leave Naples at midnight. We laid in some provi- 
sions for the trip, engaged carriages to take us to An- 
nunciation, and then moved about the city, to keep 
awake, till twelve. We got away punctually, and in 
the course of an hour and a half arrived at the town of 
Annunciation. Annunciation is the very last place 
under the sun. In other towns in Italy, the people 
lie around quietly and wait for you to ask them a 
question or do some overt act that can be charged for 
— but in Annunciation they have lost even that frag- 
ment of delicacy; they seize a lady's shawl from 
a chair and hand it to her and charge a penny; 
they open a carriage door, and charge for it — shut 
it when you get out, and charge for it; they help 
you to take ofF a duster — two cents; brush your 
clothes and make them worse than they were before 
— two cents; smile upon you — two cents; bow, with 
a lickspittle smirk, hat in hand — two cents; they 
volunteer all information, such as that the mules will 



24 The Innocents Abroad 

arrive presently — two cents — warm day, sir — two 
cents — take you four hours to make the ascent — 
two cents. And so they go. They crowd you — 
infest you — swarm about you, and sweat and smell 
offensively, and look sneaking and mean, and ob- 
sequious. There is no office too degrading for them 
to perform, for money. I have had no opportunity 
to find out anything about the upper classes by my 
own observation, but from what I hear said about 
them I judge that what they lack in one or two of the 
bad traits the canaille have, they make up in one or 
two others that are worse. How the people beg! 
many of them very well dressed, too. 

I said I knew nothing against the upper classes by 
personal observation. I must recall it! I had for- 
gotten. What I saw their bravest and their fairest 
do last night, the lowest multitude that could be 
scraped up out of the purlieus of Christendom would 
blush to do, I think. They assembled by hundreds, 
and even thousands, in the great Theater of San 
Carlo, to do — what.? Why, simply, to make fun of 
an old woman — to deride, to hiss, to jeer at an 
actress they once worshiped, but whose beauty is 
faded now and whose voice has lost its former rich- 
ness. Everybody spoke of the rare sport there was 
to be. They said the theater would be crammed, 
because Frezzolini was going to sing. It was said 
she could not sing well, now, but then the people 
liked to see her, anyhow. And so we went. And 
every time the woman sang they hissed and laughed 



The Innocents Abroad 25 

— the whole magnificent house — - and as soon as she 
left the stage they called her on again with applausCc 
Once or twice she was encored five and six times in 
succession, and received with hisses when she ap- 
peared, and discharged with hisses and laughter when 
she had finished -— then instantly encored and in- 
sulted again ! And how the high-born knaves en* 
joyed it ! White-kidded gentlemen and ladies laughed 
till the tears came, and clapped their hands in very 
ecstasy when that unhappy old woman would come 
meekly out for the sixth time, with uncomplaining 
patience, to meet a storm of hisses ! It was the 
crudest exhibition — the most wanton, the most un- 
feeling. The singer would have conquered an audi- 
ence of American rowdies by her brave, unflinching 
tranquillity (for she answered encore after encore, 
and smiled and bowed pleasantly, and sang the best 
she possibly could, and went bowing off, through all 
the jeers and hisses, without ever losing countenance 
or temper) : and surely in any other land than Italy 
her sex and her helplessness must have been an 
ample protection to her — she could have needed no 
other. Think what a multitude of small souls were 
crowded into that theater last night. If the manager 
could have filled his theater with Neapolitan souls 
alone, without the bodies, he could not have cleared 
less than ninety millions of dollars. What traits of 
character must a man have to enable him to help 
three thousand miscreants to hiss^ and jeer, and 
laugh at one friendless old woman, and shamefully 



26 Tlie Innocents Abroad 

humiliate her? Ke must have all the vile, mean 
traits there are. My observation persuades me (I 
do not like to venture beyond my own personal ob- 
servation) that the upper classes of Naples possess 
those traits of character. Otherwise they may be 
very good people ; I cannot say. 

ASCENT OF VESUVIUS — CONTINUED. 

In this city of Naples, they believe in and support 
one of the wretchedest of all the religious impostures 
one can find in Italy — the miraculous liquefaction 
of the blood of St. Janu^rius. Twice a year the 
priests assemble all the people at the Cathedral, and 
get out this vial of clotted blood and let them see it 
slowly dissolve and become liquid — and every day 
for eight days this dismal farce is repeated, while 
the priests go among the crowd and collect money 
for the exhibition. The first day, the blood liquefies 
in forty-seven minutes — the church is crammed^ 
then, and time must be allowed the collectors to get 
around : after that it liquefies a little quicker and a 
little quicker, every day, as the houses grow smaller, 
till on the eighth day, with only a few dozen present 
to see the miracle, it liquefies in four minutes. 

Aud here, also, they used to have a grand proces- 
sion, ot priests, citizens, soldiers, sailors, and the 
high dignitaries of the City Government, once a year, 
to shave the head of a made up Madonna — a stuffed 
and painted image, line a milliner's dummy — whose 
hair miraculously grew and restored itself every twelve 



The innocents Abroad tj 

months. They still kept up this shaving procession 
as late as four or five years ago. It was a source of 
great profit to the church that possessed the remark- 
ably effigy, and the ceremony of the public barbering 
of her was always carried out with the greatest possi- 
ble eclat and display — the more the better, because 
the more excitement there was about it the larger the 
crowds it drew and the heavier the revenues it pro- 
duced — but at last a day came when the Pope and 
his servants were unpopular in Naples, and the 
City Government stopped the Madonna's annual 
show. 

There we have two specimens of these Neapolitans 
— two of the silliest possible frauds, which half the 
population religiously and faithfully believed, and 
the other half either believed also or else said nothing 
about, and thus lent themselves to the support of the 
imposture „ I am very well satisfied to think the 
whole population believed in those poor, cheap, 
miracles — a people who want two cents every time 
they bow to you, and who abuse a woman, are 
capable of it, I think 

ASCENT OF VESUVIUS — CONTINUED. 

These Neapolitans always ask four times as much 
money as they intend to take, but if you give them 
what they first demand, they feel ashamed of them- 
selves for aiming so low, and immediately ask more. 
When money is to be paid and received, there is 
always some vehement jawing and gesticulating 



28 The Innocents Abroad 

about it» One cannot buy and pay for two cents' 

worth of clams without trouble and a quarreL One 
'course,** in a two-horse carriage, costs a franc — 
that is law — but the hackman always demands more, 
on some pretense or other, and if he gets it he 
makes a new demandc It is said that a stranger 
took a one-horse carriage for a course - — tariff, half 
a franc. He gave the man five francs, by way of 
experiment. He demanded more, and received 
another franc. Again he demanded more, and gor 
a franc — demanded more, and it was refused. He 
grew vehement — was again refused, and became 
noisy. The stranger said,. *'Well, give me the 
seven francs again , and I will see what I can do * * — 
and when he got them, he handed the hackman half 
a franc, and he immediately asked for two cents to 
buy a drink with. It may be thought that I am 
prejudiced. Perhaps I am I would be ashamed 
of myself if I were not. 

ASCEl>rr OF VESUVIUS — CONTINUED. 

Well, as I was saying, we got our mules and 
horses, after an hour and a half of bargaining with 
the population of Annunciation, and started sleepily 
up the mountain, with a vagrant at each mule's tail 
who pretended to be driving the brute along, but was 
really holding on and getting himself dragged up in- 
stead. I made slow headway at first, but I began to 
get dissatisfied at the idea of paying my minion five 
francs to hold my mule back by the tail and keep 



The innocents Abroad 29 

him from going up the hill, and so I discharged him. 
I got along faster then= 

We had one magnificent picture of Naples from a 
high point on the mountain side. We saw nothing 
but the gas lamps, of course — two-thirds of a circle, 
skirting the great Bay — a necklace of diamonds 
glinting up through the darkness from the remote 
distance — less brilliant than the stars overhead, but 
more softly, richly beautiful - — and over all the great 
city the lights crossed and recrossed each other in 
many and many a sparkling line and curve. And 
back of the town, far around and abroad over the 
miles of level campagna, were scattered rows, and 
circles, and clusters of lights, all glowing like so 
many gems, and marking where a score of villages 
were sleeping. About this time, the fellow who was 
hanging on to the tail of the horse in front of me and 
practicing all sorts of unnecessary cruelty upon the 
animal, got kicked some fourteen rods, and this in- 
cident, together with the fairy spectacle of the lights 
far in the distance, made me serenely happy, and I 
was glad I started to Vesuvius. 

ASCENT OF MOUNT VESUVIUS — CONTINUED. 

This subject will be excellent matter for a chapter, 
and to-morrow or next day I will write it. 



CHAPTER III 

ASCENT OF VESUVIUS-— CONTINUED. 

*«CEE Naples and die.** Well, I do not know 
<-^ that one would necessarily die after merely 
seeing it, but to attempt to live there might turn out 
a little differently. To see Naples as we saw it in 
the early dawn from far up on the side of Vesuvius, 
h to see a picture of wonderful beauty. At that 
distance its dingy buildings looked white — and so. 
rank on rank of balconies, windows, and roofs, the> 
piled themselves up from the blue ocean till the 
colossal castle of St. Elmo topped the grand white 
pyramid and gave the picture symmetry, emphasis^, 
and completeness.. And when its lilies turned to 
roses — when it blushed under the sun's first kiss — 
it was beautiful beyond all description. One might 
well say, then, '* See Naples and die," The frame 
of the picture was charming, itself. In front, the 
smooth sea — a vast mosaic of many colors; the 
lofty islands swimming in a dreamy haze in the dis- 
tance ; at our end of the city the stately double peak 
of Vesuvius, and its strong black ribs and seams of 
kva stretching down to the limitless level campagna 



Tiie Innocents Abroad 3I 

'—a green carpet that enchants the eye and leads it 
on and on, past clusters of trees, and isolated 
houses, and snowy villages, until it shreds out 
in a fringe of mist and general vagueness far 
away. It is from the Hermitage, there on the 
side of Vesuvius, that one should ** see Naples 
and die.*' 

But do not go within the walls and look at it in 
detail. That takes away some of the romance of the 
thing. The people are filthy in their habits, and 
this makes filthy streets and breeds disagreeable 
sights and smells. There never was a community 
so prejudiced against the cholera as these Neapolitans 
are. But they have good reason to be. The cholera 
generally vanquishes a Neapolitan when it seizes 
him, because, you understand, before the doctor 
can dig through the dirt and get at the disease the 
man dies. The upper classes take a sea-bath every 
day, and are pretty decent. 

The streets are generally about wide enough for 
one wagon, and how they do swarm with people! 
It is Broadway repeated in every street, in every 
court, in every alley ! Such masses, such throngs, 
such multitudes of hurrying, bustling, struggling 
humanity ! We never saw the like of it, hardly even 
in New York, I think. There are seldom any side- 
walks, and when there are, they are not often wide 
enough to pass a man on without caroming on him. 
So everybody walks in the street — and where the 
street is wide enough carriages are forever dashing 



52 The Innocents Abroad 

along. Why a thousand people are not run over 
and crippled every day is a mystery that no man 
can solve. 

But if there is an eighth wonder in the world, it 
must be the dwelling-houses of Naples. I honestly 
believe a good majority of them are a hundred feet 
high! And the solid brick walls are seven feet 
through. You go up nine flights of stairs before 
you get to the ** first" floor. No, not nine, but 
there or thereabouts. There is a little bird-cage of 
an iron railing in front of every window clear away 
up, up, up, among the eternal clouds, where the 
roof is, and there is always somebody looking out of 
every window— people of ordinary size lookIn(;; 
out from the first floor, people a shade smaller from 
the second, people that look a little smaller yet from 
the third ■ — and from thence upward they grow 
smaller and smaller by a regularly graduated diminu- 
tion, till the folks in the topmost windows seem 
more like birds in an uncommonly tall martin-box 
than anything else. The perspective of one of these 
narrow cracks of streets, with its rows of tall houses 
stretching away till they come together in the dis- 
tance like railway tracks; its clothes-lines crossing 
over at all altitudes and waving their bannered 
raggedness over the swarms of people below; and 
the white-dressed women perched in balcony railings 
all the way from the pavement up to the heavens — 
a perspective like that is really worth going into 
i^^eapoiitan details to see 



The Innocents Abroad 33 

ASCENT OF VESUVIUS — CONTINUED. 

Naples, with its immediate suburbs, contains six 
hundred and twenty-five thousand inhabitants, but I 
am satisfied it covers no more ground than an 
American city of one hundred and fifty thousand. 
It reaches up into the air infinitely higher than three 
American cities, though, and there is where the 
secret of it lies. I will observe here, in passing, 
that the contrasts between opulence and poverty, 
and magnificence and misery, are more frequent and 
more striking in Naples than in Paris even. One 
must go to the Bois de Boulogne to see fashionable 
dressing, splendid equipages, and stunning liveries, 
and to the Faubourg St. Antoine to see vice, misery, 
hunger, rags, dirt — but in the thoroughfares of 
Naples these things are all mixed together. Naked 
boys of nine years and the fancy-dressed children of 
luxury; shreds and tatters, and brilliant uniforms; 
jackass carts and state carriages; beggars, princes, 
and bishops, jostle each other in every street. At 
six o'clock every evening, all Naples turns out to 
drive on the Riviera di Chiaja (whatever that may 
mean) ; and for two hours one may stand there and 
see the motliest and the worst-mixed procession go 
by that ever eyes beheld. Princes (there are more 
princes than policemen in Naples — the city is in- 
fested with them) — princes who live up seven 
flights of stairs and don't own any principalities, 
will keep a carriage and go hungry; and clerks^ 



}4 The Innocents Abroad 

mechanics, milliners, and strumpets will go without 
their dinners and squander the money on a hack-ride 
in the Chiaja; the rag-tag and rubbish of the city 
stack themselves up, to the number of twenty or 
thirty, on a rickety little go-cart hauled by a donkey 
not much bigger than a cat, and they drive in the 
Chiaja; dukes and bankers, in sumptuous carriages 
and with gorgeous drivers and footmen, turn out, 
also, and so the furious procession goes. For two 
hours rank and wealth, and obscurity and poverty, 
clatter along side by side in the wild procession, 
and then go home serene, happy, covered with 
glory ! 

I was looking at a magnificent marble staircase in 
the King's palace, the other day, which, it was said, 
cost five million francs, and I suppose it did cost 
half a million, may be. I felt as if it must be a fine 
thing to live in a country where there was such 
comfort and such luxury as this. And then I 
stepped out musing, and almost walked over a vaga- 
bond who was eating his dinner on the curbstone — 
a piece of bread and a bunch of grapes. When I 
found that this mustang was clerking in a fruit 
establishment (he had the establishment along with 
him in a basket), at two cents a day, and that he 
had no palace at home where he lived, I lost some 
of my enthusiasm concerning the happiness of living 
in Italy, 

This naturally suggests to me a thought about 
wages here- Lieutenants in the army get about a 



The Innocents Abroad! J$ 

dollar a day, and common soldiers a couple of cents. 
I only know one clerk — he gets four dollars a 
month. Printers get six dollars and a half a month, 
but I have heard of a foreman who gets thirteen. 
To be growing suddenly and violently rich, as this 
man is, naturally makes him a bloated aristocrat. 
The airs he puts on are insufferable. 

And, speaking of wages, reminds me of prices of 
merchandise. In Paris you pay twelve dollars a 
dozen for Jouvin's best kid gloves; gloves of about 
as good quality sell here at three or four dollars a 
dozen. You pay five and six dollars apiece for fine 
linen shirts in Paris ; here and in Leghorn you pay 
two and a half. In Marseilles you pay forty dollars 
for a first-class dress coat made by a good tailor, 
but in Leghorn you can get a full dress suit for the 
same money. Here you get handsome business 
suits at from ten to twenty dollars, and in Leghorn 
you can get an overcoat for fifteen dollars that would 
cost you seventy in New York. Fine kid boots are 
worth eight dollars in Marseilles and four dollars 
here. Lyons velvets rank higher in America than 
those of Genoa. Yet the bulk of Lyons velvets you 
buy in the States are made in Genoa and imported 
into Lyons, where they receive the Lyons stamp 
and are then exported to America. You can buy 
enough velvet in Genoa for twenty-five dollars to 
make a five hundred dollar cloak in New York — so 
the ladies tell me. Of course, these things bring me 
back, by a natural and easy transition, to the 



36 The Innocents Abroad 

ASCENT OF VESUVIUS — CONTINUED. 

And thus the wonderful Blue Grotto is suggested 
to me. It is situated on the island of Capri, twenty- 
two miles from Naples. We chartered a little 
steamer and went out there. Of course, the police 
boarded us and put us through a health examination, 
and inquired into our politics, before they would let 
us land. The airs these little insect governments 
put on are in the last degree ridiculous. They even 
put a policeman on board of our boat to keep an 
eye on us as long as we were in the Capri dominions. 
They thought we wanted to steal the grotto, I sup- 
pose. It was worth stealing. The entrance to the 
cave is four feet high and four feet wide, and is in 
the face of a lofty perpendicular cliff — the sea wall. 
You enter in small boats — and a tight squeeze it is, 
too. You cannot go in at all when the tide is up. 
Once within, you find yourself in an arched cavern 
about one hundred and sixty feet long, one hundred 
and twenty wide, and about seventy high. How 
deep it is no man knows. It goes down to the 
bottom of the ocean. The waters of this placid 
subterranean lake are the brightest, loveliest blue 
that can be imagined. They are as transparent as 
plate glass, and their coloring would shame the 
richest sky that ever bent over Italy. No tint could 
L>e more ravishing, no luster more superb. Throw 
a stone into the water, and the myriad of tiny bub- 
bles that are created flash out a brilliant glare like 
blue theatrical fires. Dip an oar, and its blade turns 



The Innocents Abroad 37 

to splendid frosted silver, tinted with blue. Let a 
man jump in, and instantly he is cased in an armor 
more gorgeous than ever kingly Crusader wore. 

Then we went to Ischia, but I had already been 
to that island and tired myself to death ** resting" 
a couple of days and studying human villainy, with 
the landlord of the Grande Sentinelle for a model. 
So we went to Procida, and from thence to Pozzuoli, 
where St. Paul landed after he sailed from Samos. 
I landed at precisely the same spot where St. Paul 
landed, and so did Dan and the others. It was a 
remarkable coincidence. St. Paul preached to these 
people seven days before he started to Rome. 

Nero's Baths, the ruins of Baiae, the Temple of 
Serapis ; Cumae, where the Cumasan Sibyl interpreted 
the oracles, the Lake Agnano, with its ancient sub- 
merged city still visible far down in its depths — 
these and a hundred other points of interest we 
examined with critical imbecility, but the Grotto of 
the Dog claimed our chief attention, because we had 
heard and read so much about it. Everybody has 
written about the Grotto del Cane and its poisonous 
vapors, from Pliny down to Smith, and every tourist 
has held a dog over its floor by the legs to test the 
capabiHties of the place. The dog dies in a minute 
and a half — a chicken instantly. As a general 
thing, strangers who crawl in there to sleep do not 
get up until they are called. And then they don't, 
either. The stranger that ventures to sleep there 
takes a permanent contract. I longed to see this 



38 The Innocents Abroad 

grotto. I resolved to take a dog and hold him my- 
self; suffocate him a little, and time him; suffocate 
him some more, and then finish him. We reached 
the grotto about three in the afternoon, and pro- 
ceeded at once to make the experiments. But now, 
an important difficulty presented itself. We had no 
dog. 

ASCENT OF VESUVIUS — CONTINUED. 

At the Hermitage we were about fifteen or eight- 
een hundred feet above the sea, and thus far a 
portion of the ascent had been pretty abrupt. For 
the next two miles the road was a mixture — some- 
times the ascent was abrupt and sometimes it was 
not ; but one characteristic it possessed all the time, 
without failure — without modification — it was all 
uncompromisingly and unspeakably infamous. It 
was a rough, narrow trail, and led over an old lava- 
flow — a black ocean which was tumbled into a 
thousand fantastic shapes — a wild chaos of ruin, 
desolation, and barrenness — a wilderness of billowy 
upheavals, of furious whirlpools, of miniature moun- 
tains rent asunder — of gnarled and knotted, wrinkled 
and twisted masses of blackness that mimicked 
branching roots, great vines, trunks of trees, all 
interlaced and mingled together ; and all these weird 
shapes, all this turbulent panorama, all this stormy, 
far-stretching waste of blackness, with its thrilling 
suggestiveness of life, of action, of boiling, surging, 
furious motion, was petrified! — all stricken dead 
and cold in the instant of its maddest rioting ! — ■ 



The Innocents Abroad 39 

fettered, paralyzed, and left to glower at heaven in 
impotent rage forevermore ! 

Finally we stood in a level, narrow valley (a valley 
that had been created by the terrific march of some 
old-time eruption) and on either hand towered the 
two steep peaks of Vesuvius. The one we had to 
climb — the one that contains the active volcano — 
seemed about eight hundred or one thousand feet 
high, and looked almost too straight-up-and-down 
for any man to climb, and certainly no mule could 
climb it with a man on his back. Four of these 
native pirates will carry you to the top in a sedan 
chair, if you wish it, but suppose they were to slip 
and let you fall, — is it likely that you would ever 
stop roiling? Not this side of eternity, perhaps. 
We left the mules, sharpened our finger nails, and 
began the ascent I have been writing about so long, 
at twenty minutes to six in the morning. The path 
led straight up a rugged sweep of loose chunks of 
pumice-stone, and for about every two steps forward 
we took, we slid back one. It was so excessively 
steep that we had to stop, every fifty or sixty steps, 
and rest a moment. To see our comrades, we had 
to look very nearly straight up at those above us, 
and very nearly straight down at those below. We 
stood on the summit at last — it had taken an hour 
and fifteen minutes to make the trip. 

What we saw there was simply a circular crater — 
a circular ditch, if you please — about two hundred 
feet deep, and four or five hundred feet wide, whose 



40 The Innocents Abroad 

inner wall was about half a mile in circumference. 
In the center of the great circus-ring thus formed 
was a torn and ragged upheaval a hundred feet high, 
all snowed over with a sulphur crust of many and 
many a brilliant and beautiful color, and the ditch 
inclosed this like the moat of a castle, or surrounded 
it as a little river does a little island, if the simile is 
better. The sulphur coating of that island was 
gaudy in the extreme — all mingled together in the 
richest confusion were red, blue, brown, black, 
yellow, white — I do not know that there was a 
color, or shade of a color. Or combination of colors, 
unrepresented — and when the sun burst through 
the morning mists and fired this tinted magnificence, 
it topped imperial Vesuvius like a jeweled crown ! 

The crater itself — the ditch — was not so varie- 
gated in coloring, but yet, in its softness, richness, 
and unpretentious elegance, it was more charming, 
more fascinating to the eye. There was nothing 
** loud " about its well-bred and well-dressed look. 
Beautiful? One could stand and look down upon it 
for a week without getting tired of it. It had the 
semblance of a pleasant meadow, whose slender 
grasses and whose velvety mosses were frosted with 
a shining dust, and tinted with palest green that 
deepened gradually to the darkest hue of the orange 
leaf, and deepened yet again into gravest brown, 
then faded into orange, then into brightest gold, and 
culminated in the delicate pink of a new-blown rose. 
Where portions of the meadow had sunk, and where 



The Innocents Abroad 41 

other portions had been broken up like an ice-floe, 
the cavernous openings of the one, and the ragged 
upturned edges exposed by the other, were hung 
with a lacework of soft-tinted crystals of sulphur 
that changed their deformities into quaint shapes 
and figures that were full of grace and beauty. 

The walls of the ditch were brilliant with yellow 
banks of sulphur and with lava and pumice-stone of 
many colors. No fire was visible anywhere, but 
gusts of sulphurous steam issued silently and in- 
visibly from a thousand little cracks and fissures in 
the crater, and were wafted to our noses with every 
breeze. But so long as we kept our nostrils buried 
in our handkerchiefs, there was small danger of 
suffocation. 

Some of the boys thrust long slips of paper down 
into holes and set them on fire, and so achieved the 
glory of lighting their cigars by the flames of 
Vesuvius, and others cooked eggs over fissures in 
the rocks and were happy. 

The view from the summit would have been superb 
but for the fact that the sun could only pierce the 
mists at long Intervals. Thus the glimpses we had 
of the grand panorama below were only fitful and 
unsatisfactory. 

THE DESCENT. 

The descent of the mountain was a labor of only 
four minutes. Instead of stalking down the rugged 
path we ascended, we chose one which was bedded 
knee-deep in loose ashes, and plowed our way with 



42 The Innocents Abroad 

prodigious strides that would almost have shamed 
the performance of him of the seven-league boots. 

The Vesuvius of to-day is a very poor affair com- 
pared to the mighty volcano of Kilauea, in the 
Sandwich Islands, but I am glad 1 visited it. It was 
well worth it. 

It is said that during one of the grand eruptions 
of Vesuvius it discharged massy rocks weighing 
many tons a thousand feet into the air, its vast jets 
of smoke and steam ascended thirty miles toward 
the firmament, and clouds of its ashes were wafted 
abroad and fell upon the decks of ships seven hun- 
dred and fifty miles at sea ! I will take the ashes at 
a moderate discount, if any one will take the thirty 
miles of smoke, but I do not feel able to take a 
commanding interest in the whole story by myself. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE BURIED CITY OF POMPEII. 

THEY pronounce it Vom-pay-Q, I always had 
an idea that you went down into Pompeii with 
torches, by the way of damp, dark stairways, just 
as you do in silver mines, and traversed gloomy 
tunnels with lava overhead and something on either 
hand like dilapidated prisons gouged out of the solid 
earth, that faintly resembled houses. But you do 
nothing of the kind. Fully one-half of the buried 
city, perhaps, is completely exhumed and thrown 
open freely to the light of day ; and there stand the 
long rows of solidly-built brick houses (roofless) 
just as they stood eighteen hundred years ago, hot 
with the flaming sun; and there lie their floors, 
clean-swept, and not a bright fragment tarnished or 
wanting of the labored mosaics that pictured them 
with the beasts and birds and flowers which we 
copy in perishable carpets to-day; and there are the 
Venuses and Bacchuses and Adonises, making love 
and getting drunk in many-hued frescoes on the 
walls of saloon and bedchamber ; and there are the 
narrow streets and narrower sidewalks, paved with 



44 The Innocents Abroad 

flags of good hard lava, the one deeply rutted with 
the chariot- wheels, and the other with the passing 
feet of the Pompeiians of by-gone centuries ; and 
there are the bake-shops, the temples, the halls of 
justice, the baths, the theaters — all clean-scraped 
and neat, and suggesting nothing of the nature of a 
silver mine away down in the bowels of the earth. 
The broken pillars lying about, the doorless door- 
ways, and the crumbled tops of the wilderness of 
walls, were wonderfully suggestive of the ** burnt 
district" in one of our cities, and if there had been 
any charred timbers, shattered windows, heaps of 
debris, and general blackness and smokiness about 
the place, the resemblance would have been perfect. 
But no — the sun shines as brightly down on old 
Pompeii to-day as it did when Christ was born in 
Bethlehem, and its streets are cleaner a hundred 
times than ever Pompeiian saw them in her prime. 
I know whereof I speak — for in the great, chief 
thoroughfares (Merchant Street and the Street of 
Fortune) have I not seen with my own eyes how for 
two hundred years at least the pavements were not 
repaired ! — how ruts five and even ten inches deep 
were worn into the thick flagstones by the chariot- 
wheels of generations of swindled taxpayers? And 
do I not know by these signs that street commis- 
sioners of Pompeii never attended to their business, 
and that if they never mended the pavements they 
never cleaned them? And, besides, is it not the 
inborn nature of street commissioners to avoid their 



The Innocents Abroad 45 

duty whenever they get a chance? I wish I knew 
the name of the last one that held office in Pompeif 
so that I could give him a blast. I speak with feel- 
ing on this subject, because I caught my foot in one 
of those ruts, and the sadness that came over me 
when I saw the first poor skeleton, with ashes and 
lava sticking to it, was tempered by the reflection 
that may be that party was the street commissioner. 

No — Pompeii is no longer a buried city. It is a 
city of hundreds and hundreds of roofless houses, 
and a tangled maze of streets where one could easily 
get lost, without a guide, and have to sleep in some 
ghostly palace that had known no living tenant since 
that awful November night of eighteen centuries ago. 

We passed through the gate which faces the 
Mediterranean (called the ** Marine Gate"), and by 
the rusty, broken image of Minerva, still keeping 
tireless watch and ward over the possessions it was 
powerless to save, and went up a long street and 
stood in the broad court of the Forum of Justice. 
The floor was level and clean, and up and down 
either side was a noble colonnade of broken pillars, 
with their beautiful Ionic and Corinthian columns 
scattered about them. At the upper end were the 
vacant seats of the judges, and behind them we 
descended into a dungeon where the ashes and 
cinders had found two prisoners chained on that 
memorable November night, and tortured them to 
death. How they must have tugged at the pitiless 
fetters as the fierce fires surged around them ! 



46 The Innocents Abroad 

Then we lounged through many and many a 
sumptuous private mansion which we could not have 
entered without a formal invitation in incomprehen- 
sible Latin, m the olden time, when the owners lived 
there — and we probably wouldn't have got it. 
These people built their houses a good deal alike. 
The floors were laid in fanciful figures wrought in 
mosaics of many-colored marbles. At the threshold 
your eyes fall upon a Latin sentence of welcome, 
sometimes, or a picture of a dog, with the legend, 
''Beware of the Dog," and sometimes a picture of 
a bear or a faun with no inscription at all. Then 
you enter a sort of vestibule, where they used to 
keep the hat-rack, I suppose; next a room with a 
large marble basin in the midst and the pipes of a 
fountain ; on either side are bedrooms ; beyond the 
fountain is a reception-room, then a little garden, 
dining-room, and so forth and so on. The floors 
were all mosaic, the walls were stuccoed, or frescoed, 
or ornamented with bas-reliefs, and here and there 
were statues, large and small, and little fish-pools, 
and cascades of sparkling water that sprang from 
secret places in the colonnade of handsome pillars 
that surrounded the court, and kept the flower beds 
fresh and the air cool. Those Pompeiians were 
very luxurious in their tastes and habits. The most 
exquisite bronzes we have seen in Europe came 
from the exhumed cities of Herculaneum and Pom- 
peii, and also the finest cameos and the most deli- 
cate engravings on precious stones ; their pictures, 



The Innocents Abroaa 47 

eighteen or nineteen centuries old, are often much 
more pleasing than the celebrated rubbish of the old 
masters of three centuries ago. They were well up 
in art. From the creation of these works of the 
first, clear up to the eleventh century, art seems 
hardly to have existed at all — at least no remnants 
of it are left — and it was curious to see how far (in 
some things, at any rate) these old-time pagans ex- 
celled the remote generations of masters that came 
after them. The pride of the world in sculptures 
seem to be the Laocoon and the Dying Gladiator, 
in Rome. They are as old as Pompeii, were dug 
from the earth like Pompeii ; but their exact age or 
who made them can only be conjectured. But 
worn and cracked, without a history, and with the 
blemishing stains of numberless centuries upon 
them, they still mutely mock at all efforts to rival 
their perfections. 

It was a quaint and curious pastime, wandering 
through this old silent city of the dead — lounging 
through utterly deserted streets where thousands and 
thousands of human beings once bought and sold, 
and walked and rode, and made the place resound 
with the noise and confusion of traffic and pleasure. 
They were not lazy. They hurried in those days. 
We had evidence of that. There was a temple on 
one corner, and it was a shorter cut to go between 
the columns of that temple from one street to the 
other than to go around — and behold, that pathway 
had been worn deep into the heavy flagstone flooi 



48 The Innocents Abroad 

of the building by generations of time-saving feet! 
They would not go around when it was quicker to 
go through. We do that way in our cities. 

Everywhere, you see things that make you won- 
der how old these old houses were before the night 
of destruction came — things, too, which bring back 
those long-dead inhabitants and place them living 
before your eyes. For instance: The steps (two 
feet thick — lava blocks) that lead up out of the 
school, and the same kind of steps that lead up into 
the dress circle of the principal theater, are almost 
worn through ! For ages the boys hurried out of 
that school, and for ages their parents hurried into 
that theater, and the nervous feet that have been 
dust and ashes for eighteen centuries have left their 
record for us to read to-day. I imagined I could 
see crowds of gentlemen and ladies thronging into 
the theater, with tickets for secured seats in their 
hands, and on the wall, I read the imaginary 
placard, in infamous grammar, ** POSITIVELY No 
Free List, Except Members of the Press!" 
Hanging about the doorway (I fancied) were 
slouchy Pompeiian street boys uttering slang and 
profanity, and keeping a wary eye out for checks. 
I entered the theater, and sat down in one of the 
long rows of stone benches in the dress circle, and 
looked at the place for the orchestra, and the ruined 
stage, and around at the wide sweep of empty 
boxes, and thought to myself, **This house won't 
pay.'* I tried to imagine the music in full blast. 



Hie Innocents Abroad 49 

the leader of the orchestra beating time, and the 
'* versatile ** So-and-So (who had **just returned 
from a most successful tour in the provinces to play 
his last and farewell engagement of positively six 
nights only, in Pompeii, previous to his departure 
for Herculaneum *') charging around the stage and 
piling the agony mountains high — but I could not 
do it with such a** house** as that; those empty 
benches tied my fancy down to dull reality. I said, 
these people that ought to be here have been dead, 
and still, and moldering to dust for ages and ages, 
and will never care for the trifles and follies of life 
any more forever — ** Owing to circumstances, etc., 
etc., there will not be any performance to-night.'* 
Close down the curtain. Put out the lights. 

And so I turned away and went through shop 
after shop and store after store, far down the long 
stieet of the merchants, and called for the wares of 
Rome and the East, but the tradesmen were gone, 
the marts were silent, and nothing was left but the 
broken jars all set in cement of cinders and ashes ; 
the wine and the oil that once had filled them were 
gone with their owners. 

In a bake-shop was a mill for grinding the grain, 
and the furnaces for baking the bread; and they 
say that here, in the same furnaces, the exhumers 
of Pompeii fouiid nice, well-baked loaves which the 
baker had not found time to remove from the ovens 
the last time he left his shop, because circumstances 
compelled him to leave in such a hurry. 



50 The innocents Abroad 

In one house (the only building in Pompeii which 
no woman is now allowed to enter) were the small 
rooms and short beds of solid masonry, just as they 
were in the old times, and on the walls were pictures 
which looked almost as fresh as if they were painted 
yesterday, but which no pen could have the hardi- 
hood to describe; and here and there were Latin 
inscriptions — obscene scintillations of wit, scratched 
by hands that possibly were uplifted to Heaven for 
succor in the midst of a driving storm of fire before 
the night was done. 

In one of the principal streets was a ponderous 
stone tank, and a waterspout that supplied it, and 
where the tired, heated toilers from the Campagna 
used to rest their right hands when they bent over 
to put their lips to the spout, the thick stone was 
worn down to a broad groove an inch or two deep. 
Think of the countless thousands of hands that had 
pressed that spot in the ages that are gone, to so 
reduce a stone that is as hard as iron ! 

They had a great public bulletin-board in Pompeii 
^-a place where announcements for gladiatorial 
combats, elections, and such things, were posted — 
not on perishable paper, but carved in enduring 
stone. One lady, who, I take it, was rich and well 
brought up, advertised a dwelling or so to rent, with 
baths and all the modern improvements, and several 
hundred shops, stipulating that the dwellings should 
not be put to immoral purposes. You can find out 
who lived in many a house in Pompeii by the carved 



The Innocents Abroad 5i 

stone door-plates affixed to them : and in the same 
way you can tell who they were that occupy the 
tombs. Everywhere around are things that reveal 
to you something of the customs and history of this 
forgotten people. But what would a volcano leave 
of an American city, if it once rained its cinders on 
it? Hardly a sign or a symbol to tell its story „ 

In one of these long Pompeiian halls the skeleton of 
a man was found, with ten pieces of gold in one hand 
and a large key in the other. He had seized his 
money and started toward the door, but the fiery 
tempest caught him at the very threshold, and he 
sank down and died. One more minute of precious 
time would have saved him, I saw the skeletons of a 
man, a woman, and two young girls. The woman had 
her hands spread wide apart, as if in mortal terror, 
and I imagined I could still trace upon her shapeless 
face something of the expression of wild despair that 
distorted it when the heavens rained fire in these 
streets, so many ages ago. The girls and the man 
lay with their faces upon their arms, as if they had 
tried to shield them from the enveloping cinders. In 
one apartment eighteen skeletons were found, all in 
sitting postures, and blackened places on the walls 
still mark their shapes and show their attitudes, like 
shadows. One of them, a woman, still wore upon 
her skeleton throat a necklace, with her name en- 
graved upon it — Julie di Diomede. 

But perhaps the most poetical thing Pompeii has 
yielded to modern research, was that grand figure of 



52 The Innocents Abroad 

a Roman soldier, clad in complete armor; who, true 
to his duty, true to his proud name of a soldier of 
Rome, and full of the stern courage which had given 
to that name its glory, stood to his post by the city 
gate, erect and unflinching, till the hell that raged 
around him burned out the dauntless spirit it could 
not conquer. 

We never read of Pompeii but we think of that 
soldier; we cannot write of Pompeii without the 
natural impulse to grant to him the mention he so 
well deserves. Let us remember that he was a 
soldier — not a policeman — and so, praise him. 
Being a soldier, he stayed, — because the warrior in- 
stinct forbade him to fly. Had he been a policeman 
he would have stayed, also — because he would have 
been asleep. 

There are not half a dozen flights of stairs in Pom- 
peii, and no other evidences that the houses were 
more than one story high. The people did not live 
in the clouds, as do the Venetians, the Genoese 
and Neapolitans of to-day. 

We came out from under the solemn mysteries of 
this city of the Venerable Past— this city which per- 
ished, with all its old ways and its quaint old fashions 
about it, remote centuries ago, when the Disciples 
were preaching the new religion, which is as old as 
the hills to us now — and went dreaming among the 
trees that grow over acres and acres of its still buried 
streets and squares, till a shrill whistle and the cry 
of *M// aboard — last train for Naples ! " woke me 



The Innocents Abroad 53 

up and reminded me that I belonged in the nine- 
teenth century, and was not a dusty mummy, caked 
with ashes and cinders, eighteen hundred years old. 
The transition was startling. The idea of a railroad 
train actually running to old dead Pompeii, and 
whistling irreverently, and calling for passengers in 
the most bustling and business-like way, was as 
strange a thing as one could imagine, and as unpo- 
etical and disagreeable as it was strange. 

Compare the cheerful life and the sunshine of this 
day with the horrors the younger Pliny saw here, 
the 9th of November, A.D. 79, when he was so 
bravely striving to remove his mother out of reach 
of harm, while she begged him, with all a mother's 
unselfishness, to leave her to perish and save himself. 

" By this time the murky darkness had so increased that one might 
have beHeved himself abroad in a black and moonless night, or in a 
chamber where all the lights had been extinguished. On every hand 
was heard the complaints of women, the wailing of children, and the 
cries of men. One called his father, another his son, and another his 
wife, and only by their voices could they know each other. Many in 
their despair begged that death would come and end their distress. 

" Some implored the gods to succor them, and some believed that 
this night was the last, the eternal night which should engulf the 
universe ! 

" Even so it seemed to me — and I consoled myself for the coming 
death with the reflection: Behold! the World is passing away! '* 
• ••••••• 

After browsing among the stately ruins of Rome, 

of Baiae, of Pompeii, and after glancing down the 

long marble ranks of battered and nameless imperial 

heads that stretch down the corridors of the Vatican, 

one thing strikes me with a force it never had be- 



54 The Innocents Abroad 

fore: the unsubstantial, unlasting character of fame. 
Men lived long lives, in the olden time, and struggled 
feverishly through them, toiling like slaves, in ora- 
tory, in generalship, or in literature, and then laid 
them down and died, happy in the possession of an 
enduring history and a deathless name. Well, twenty 
little centuries flutter away, and what is left of these 
things? A crazy inscription on a block of stone, 
which snuffy antiquaries bother over and tangle up 
and make nothing out of but a bare name (which 
they spell wrong) — no history, no tradition, no 
poetry — nothing that can give it even a passing in- 
terest. What may be left of General Grant's great 
name forty centuries hence? This — in the Ency- 
clopedia for A.D. 5868, possibly. 

" Uriah S. (or Z.) Graunt — popular poet of ancient times in the 
Aztec provinces of the United States of British America. Some authors 
say flourished about A.D. 742; but the learned Ah-ah Foo-foo states 
that he was a cotemporary of Scharkspyre, the English poet, and flour- 
ished about A.D. 1328, some three centuries after the Trojan war 
instead of before it.. He wrote * Rock me to Sleep, Mother.' ** 

These ^-houghts sadden me. I will to bed. 



CHAPTER V; 

HOME, again! For the first time, in many 
weeks, the ship's entire family met and 
shook hands on the quarter-deck. They had 
gathered from many points of the compass and from 
many lands, but not one was missing ; there was no 
tale of sickness or death among the flock to dampen 
the pleasure of the reunion. Once more there was 
a full audience on deck to listen to the sailors* 
chorus as they got the anchor up, and to wave an 
adieu to the land as we sped away from Naples. 

The seats were full at dinner again, the domino 
parties were complete, and the life and bustle on 
the upper deck in the fine moonlight at night was 
like old times — old times that had been gone weeks 
only, but yet they were weeks so crowded with in- 
cident, adventure, and excitement, that they seemed 
almost like years. There was no lack of cheerful- 
ness on board the Quaker City, For once, her title 
was a misnomer. 

At seven in the evening, with the western horizon 
all golden from the sunken sun, and specked with 
distant ships, the full moon sailing high over head, 

(55) 



56 The Innocents Abroad 

the dark blue of the sea under foot, and a strange 
sort of twilight affected by all these different lights 
and colors around us and about us, we sighted superb 
Stromboli. With what majesty the monarch held 
his lonely state above the level sea! Distance 
clothed him in a purple gloom, and added a veil of 
shimmering mist that so softened his rugged features 
that we seemed to see him through a web of silver 
gauze. His torch was out; his fires were smolder- 
ing ; a tall column of smoke that rose up and lost it- 
self in the growing moonlight was all the sign he 
gave that he was a living Autocrat of the Sea and not 
the specter of a dead one. 

At two in the morning we swept through the 
Straits of Messina, and so bright was the moonlight 
that Italy on the one hand and Sicily on the other 
seemed almost as distinctly visible as though we 
looked at them from the middle of a street we were 
traversing. The city of Messina, milk-white, and 
starred and spangled all over with gaslights, was a 
fairy spectacle. A great party of us were on deck 
smoking and making a noise, and waiting to see 
famous Scylla and Charybdis. And presently the 
Oracle stepped out with his eternal spy-glass and 
squared himself on the deck like another Colossus 
of Rhodes. It was a surprise to see him abroad at 
such an hour. Nobody supposed he cared anything 
about an old fable like that of Scylla and Charybdis. 
One of the boys said : 

** Hello, doctor, what are you doing up here at 



The Innocenti) Abroad 5/ 

this time of night ? — What do you want to see this 
place for ? " 

"What do / want to see this place for? Young 
man, little do you know me, or you wouldn't ask 
such a question. 1 wish to see all the places that's 
mentioned in the Bible." 

** Stuff! This place isn't mentioned in the Bible.'* 

"It ain't mentioned in the Bible! — this place 
ain't — well now, what place is this, since you know 
so much about it?" 

•• Why it's Scylla and Charybdis. ' ' 

** Scylla and Cha — confound it, I thought it was 
Sodom and Gomorrah! " 

And he closed up his glass and went below. The 
above is the ship story. Its plausibility is marred 
a little by the fact that the Oracle was not a biblical 
student, and did not spend much of his time instruct- 
ing himself about Scriptural localities. — They say the 
Oracle complains, in this hot weather, lately, that 
the only beverage in the ship that is passable, is the 
butter. He did not mean butter, of course, but in- 
asmuch as that article remains in a melted state now 
since we are out of ice, it is fair to give him the credit 
of getting one long word in the right place, anyhow, 
for once in his life. He said, in Rome, that the 
Pope was a noble-looking old man, but he never did 
think much of his Iliad. 

We spent one pleasant day skirting along the Isles 
of Greece. They are very mountainous. Their 
prevailing tints are gray and brown, approaching to 



58 The Innocents Abroad 

red. Little white villages, surrounded by trees, 
nestle in the valleys or roost upon the lofty perpen- 
dicular sea-walls. 

We had one fine sunset — a rich carmine flush 
that suffused the western sky and cast a ruddy glow 
far over the sea. Fine sunsets seem to be rare in 
this part of the world — or at least, striking ones. 
They are soft, sensuous, lovely — they are exquisite, 
refined, effeminate, but we have seen no sunsets here 
yet like the gorgeous conflagrations that flame in the 
track of the sinking sun in our high northern 
latitudes. 

But what were sunsets to us, with the wild excite- 
ment upon us of approaching the most renowned of 
cities ! What cared we for outward visions, when 
Agamemnon, Achilles, and a thousand other heroes 
of the great Past were marching in ghostly procession 
through our fancies? What were sunsets to us, who 
were about to live and breathe and walk in actual 
Athens ; yea, and go far down into the dead centuries 
and bid in person for the slaves, Diogenes and Plato, 
in the public market-place, or gossip with the neigh- 
bors about the siege of Troy or the splendid deeds 
of Marathon? We scorned to consider sunsets. 

We arrived, and entered the ancient harbor of the 
Piraeus at last. We dropped anchor within half a 
mile of the village. Away off, across the undulat- 
ing Plain of Attica, could be seen a little square-top- 
ped hill with a something on it, which our glasses 
soon discovered to be the ruined edifices of the 



The Innocents Abroad 59 

citadel of the Athenians, and most prominent among 
them loomed the venerable Parthenon. So ex- 
quisitely clear and pure is this wonderful atmosphere 
that every column of the noble structure was discern- 
ible through the telescope, and even the smaller ruins 
about it assumed some semblance of shape. This 
at a distance of five or six miles. In the valley, 
near the Acropolis (the square-topped hill before 
spoken of) , Athens itself could be vaguely made out 
with an ordinary lorgnette. Everybody was anxious 
to get ashore and visit these classic localities as 
quickly as possible. No land we had yet seen had 
aroused such universal interest among the passen- 
gers. 

But bad news came. The commandant of the 
Piraeus came in his boat, and said we must either 
depart or else get outside the harbor and remain im- 
prisoned in our ship, under rigid quarantine, for 
eleven days ! So we took up the anchor and moved 
outside, to lie a dozen hours or so, taking in sup- 
plies, and then sail for Constantinople. It was the 
bitterest disappointment we had yet experienced. 
To lie a whole day in sight of the Acropolis, and yet 
be obliged to go away without visiting Athens ! Dis- 
appointment was hardly a strong enough word to de- 
scribe the circumstances. 

Ail hands were on deck, all the afternoon, with 
books and maps and glasses, trying to determine 
which ** narrow rocky ridge" was the Areopagus, 
which sloping hill the Pnyx, which elevation the 



60 The Innocents Abroad 

Museum Hill, and so on. And we got things coA* 
fused. Discussion became heated, and party spirit 
ran high. Church members were gazing with emo- 
tion upon a hill which they said was the one St. 
Paul preached from, and another faction claimed 
that that hill was Hymettus, and another that it was 
Pentelicon ! After all the trouble, we could be 
certain of only one thing — the square-topped hill 
was the Acropolis, and the grand ruin that crowned 
it was the Parthenon, whose picture we knew in 
infancy in the schoolbooks. 

We inquired of everybody who came near the 
ship, whether there were guards in the Piraeus, 
whether they were strict, what the chances were 
of capture should any of us slip ashore, and in case 
any of us made the venture and were caught, what 
would be probably done to us? The answers were 
discouraging : There was a strong guard or police 
force ; the Piraeus was a small town, and any stranger 
seen in it would surely attract attention — capture 
would be certain. The commandant said the punish- 
ment would be ** heavy"; when asked ** How 
heavy?" he said it would be ** very severe " — that 
was all we could get out of him. 

At eleven o'clock at night, when most of the 
ship's company were .abed, four of us stole softly 
ashore in a small boat, a clouded moon favoring the 
enterprise, and started two and two, and far apart, 
over a low hill, intending to go clear around the 
Piraeus, out of the range of its police. Picking our 



The Innocents Abroad 61 

way so stealthily over that rocky, nettle-grown 
eminence, made me feel a good deal as if I were on 
my way somewhere to steal something. My imme- 
diate comrade and I talked in an undertone about 
quarantine laws and their penalties, but we found 
nothing cheering in the subject. I was posted. 
Only a few days before, I was talking with our cap- 
tain, and he mentioned the case of a man who swam 
ashore from a quarantined ship somewhere, and got 
imprisoned six months for it; and when he was in 
Genoa a few years ago, a captain of a quarantined 
ship went in his boat to a departing ship, which was 
already outside of the harbor, and put a letter on 
board to be taken to his family, and the authorities 
imprisoned him three months for it, and then con- 
ducted him and his ship fairly to sea, and warned 
him never to show himself in that port again while 
he lived. This kind of conversation did no good, 
further than to give a sort of dismal interest to our 
quarantine-breaking expedition, and so we dropped 
it. We made the entire circuit of the town without 
seeing anybody but one man, who stared at us curi- 
ously, but said nothing, and a dozen persons asleep 
on the ground before their doors, whom we walked 
among and never woke — but we woke up dogs 
enough, in all conscience — we always had one or 
two barking at our heels, and several times we had 
as many as ten and twelve at once. They made such 
a preposterous din that persons aboard our ship said 
^hey could tell how we were progressing for a long 



62 The Innocents Abroad 

time, and where we were, by the barking of the 
dogs. The clouded moon still favored us. When 
we had made the whole circuit, and were passing 
among the houses on the further side of the town, 
the moon came out splendidly, but we no longer 
feared the light. As we approached a well, near a 
house, to get a drink, the owner merely glanced at 
us and went within. He left the quiet, slumbering 
town at our mercy. I record it here proudly, that 
we didn't do anything to it. 

Seeing no road, we took a tall hill to the left of 
the distant Acropolis for a mark, and steered straight 
for it over all obstructions, and over a little rougher 
piece of country than exists anywhere else outside 
of the State of Nevada, perhaps. Part of the way it 
was covered with small, loose stones — we trod on six 
at a time, and they all rolled. Another part of it 
was dry, loose, newly-plowed ground. Still another 
part of it was a long stretch of low grapevines, 
which were tanglesome and troublesome, and which 
we took to be brambles. The Attic Plain, barring 
the grapevines, was a barren, desolate, unpoetical 
waste — I wonder what it was in Greece's Age of 
Glory, five hundred years before Christ? 

In the neighborhood of one o'clock in the morn- 
ing, when we were heated with fast walking and 
parched with thirst, Denny exclaimed, **Why, these 
weeds are grapevines I ' ' and in five minutes we had 
a score of bunches of large, white, delicious grapes, 
and were reaching down for more when a dark shape 



The Innocents Abroad 63 

rose mysteriously up out of the shadows beside us 
and said *' Ho !" And so we left. 

In ten minutes more we struck into a beautiful 
road, and unlike some others we had stumbled upon 
at intervals, it led in the right direction. We fol- 
lowed it. It was broad and smooth and white — 
handsome and in perfect repair, and shaded on both 
sides for a mile or so with single ranks of trees, and 
also with luxuriant vineyards. Twice we entered 
and stole grapes, and the second time somebody 
shouted at us from some invisible place. Where- 
upon we left again. We speculated in grapes no 
more on that side of Athens. 

Shortly we came upon an ancient stone aqueduct, 
built upon arches, and from that time forth we had 
ruins all about us — we were approaching our jour- 
ney's end. We could not see the Acropolis now or 
the high hill, either, and I wanted to follow the road 
till we were abreast of them, but the others overruled 
me, and we toiled laboriously up the stony hill im- 
mediately in our front — and from its summit saw 
another — climbed it and saw another ! It was an 
hour of exhausting work. Soon we came upon a 
row of open graves, cut in the solid rock — (for a 
while one of them served Socrates for a prison) — 
we passed around the shoulder of the hill, and the 
citadel, in all its ruined magnificence, burst upon 
OS ! We hurried across the ravine and up a winding 
road, and stood on the old Acropolis, with the pro- 
digious walls of the citadel towering above our 



64 The Innocents Abroad 

heads. We did not stop to inspect their massiv6 
blocks of marble, or measure their height, or guess 
at their extraordinary thickness, but passed at once 
through a great arched passage like a railway tunnel, 
and went straight to the gate that leads to the 
ancient temples. It was locked ! So, after all, it 
seemed that we were not to see the great Parthenon 
face to face. We sat down and held a council of 
war. Result : The gate was only a flimsy structure 
of wood — we would break it down. It seemed like 
desecration, but then we had traveled far, and our 
necessities were urgent. We could not hunt up 
guides and keepers — we must be on the ship before 
daylight. So we argued. This was all very fine, 
but when we came to break the gate, we could not 
do it. We moved around an angle of the wall and 
found a low bastion — eight feet high without — ten 
or twelve within. Denny prepared to scale it, and 
we got ready to follow. By dint of hard scrambling 
he finally straddled the top, but some loose stones 
crumbled away and fell with a crash into the court 
within. There was instantly a banging of doors and 
a shout. Denny dropped from the wall in a twink- 
ling, and we retreated in disorder to the gate. 
Xerxes took that mighty citadel four hundred and 
eighty years before Christ, when his five millions of 
soldiers and camp-followers followed him to Greece, 
and if we four Americans could have remained un- 
molested five minutes longer, we would have taken 
it too- 



The Innocents Abroad 65 

The garrison had turned out — four Greeks. We 
clamored at the gate, and they admitted us. 
[Bribery and corruption.] 

We crossed a large court, entered a great door, 
and stood upon a pavement of purest white marble, 
deeply worn by footprints. Before us, in the flood- 
ing moonlight, rose the noblest ruins we had ever 
looked upon — the Propylaea; a small temple of 
Minerva; the Temple of Hercules, and the grand 
Parthenon. [We got these names from the Greek 
guide, who didn't seem to know more than seven 
men ought to know.] These edifices were all built 
of the whitest Pentelic marble, but have a pinkish 
stain upon them now. Where any part is broken, 
however, the fracture looks like fine loaf sugar. Six 
caryatides, or marble women, clad in flowing robes, 
support the portico of the Temple of Hercules, but 
the porticoes and colonnades of the other structures 
are formed of massive Doric and Ionic pillars, whose 
flutings and capitals are still measurably perfect, 
notwithstanding the centuries that have gone over 
them and the sieges they have suffered. The Par- 
thenon, originally, was two hundred and twenty-six 
feet long, one hundred wide, and seventy high, and 
had two rows of great columns, eight in each, at 
either end, and single rows of seventeen each down 
the sides, and was one of the most graceful and 
beautiful edifices ever erected. 

Most of the Parthenon's imposing columns are 
still standing, but the roof is gone. It was a perfect 



66 The Innocents Abroad 

building two hundred and fifty years ago, when a 
shell dropped into the Venetian magazine stored 
here, and the explosion which followed wrecked and 
unroofed it. I remember but little about the Par- 
thenon, and I have put in one or two facts and 
figures for the use of other people with short 
memories. Got them from the guide-book. 

As we wandered thoughtfully down the marble- 
paved length of this stately temple, the scene about 
us was strangely impressive. Here and there, in 
lavish profusion, were gleaming white statues of men 
and women, propped against blocks of marble, some 
of them armless, some without legs, others headless 
^but all looking mournful in the moonlight, and 
startlingly human ! They rose up and confronted 
the midnight intruder on every side — they stared at 
him with stony eyes from unlooked-for nooks and 
recesses ; they peered at him over fragmentary heaps 
far down the desolate corridors; they barred his 
way in the midst of the broad forum, and solemnly 
pointed with handless arms the way from the sacred 
fane; and through the roofless temple the moon 
looked down, and banded the floor and darkened the 
scattered fragments and broken statues with the 
slanting shadows of the columns. 

What a world of ruined sculpture was about us ! 
Set up in rows — ^ stacked up in piles — scattered 
broadcast over the wide area of the Acropolis — 
were hundreds of crippled statues of all sizes and of 
the most exquisite workmanship ; and vast fragment? 



The Innocents Abroad 67 

of marble that once belonged to the entablatures, 
covered with bas-reliefs representing battles and 
sieges, ships of war with three and four tiers of 
oars, pageants and processions — everything one 
could think of. History says that the temples of 
the Acropolis were filled with the noblest works of 
Praxiteles and Phidias, and of many a great master 
in sculpture besides — and surely these elegant frag- 
ments attest it. 

We walked out into the grass-grown, fragment- 
strewn court beyond the Parthenon. It startled us, 
every now and then, to see a stony white face stare 
suddenly up at us out of the grass with its dead 
eyes. The place seemed alive with ghosts. I half 
expected to see the Athenian heroes of twenty 
centuries ago glide out of the shadows and steal 
into the old temple they knew so well and regarded 
with such boundless pride. 

The full moon was riding high in the cloudless 
heavens now. We sauntered carelessly and unthink- 
ingly to the edge of the lofty battlements of the 
citadel, and looked down — a vision ! And such a 
vision! Athens by moonlight! The prophet that 
thought the splendors of the New Jerusalem were 
revealed to him, surely saw this instead ! It lay in 
the level plain right under our feet — all spread 
abroad like a picture — and we looked down upon it 
as we might have looked from a balloon. We saw 
no semblance of a street, but every house, every 
window, every clinging vine, every projection, was 



68 The Innocents Abroad 

as distinct and sharply marked as if the time were 
noonday; and yet there was no glare, no glitter, 
nothing harsh or repulsive — the noiseless city was 
flooded with the mellowest light that ever streamed 
from the moon, and seemed Hke some living creature 
wrapped in peaceful slumber. On its further side 
was a Httle temple, whose deHcate pillars and ornate 
front glowed with a rich luster that chained the eye 
like a spell; and nearer by, the palace of the king 
reared its creamy walls out of the midst of a great 
garden of shrubbery that was flecked all over with a 
random shower of amber lights — a spray of golden 
sparks that lost their brightness in the glory of the 
moon, and glinted softly upon the sea of dark 
foliage like the pallid stars of the milky-way. Over- 
head the stately columns, majestic still in their ruin 
— under foot the dreaming city — in the distance 
the silver sea — not on the broad earth is there 
another picture half so beautiful ! 

As we turned and moved again through the 
temple, I wished that the illustrious men who had 
sat in it in the remote ages could visit it again and 
reveal themselves to our curious eyes — Plato, Aris- 
totle, Demosthenes, Socrates, Phocion, Pythagoras, 
Euclid, Pindar, Xenophon, Herodotus, Praxiteles 
and Phidias, Zeuxis the painter. What a constella- 
tion of celebrated names ! But more than all, I 
wished that old Diogenes, groping so patiently with 
his lantern, searching so zealously for one solitary 
honest man in all the world, might meander along 



The Innocents Abroad 69 

and stumble on our party. I ought not to say it, 
may be, but still I suppose he would have put out 
his light. 

We left the Parthenon tc keep its watch over old 
Athens, as it had kept it for twenty-three hundred 
years, and went and stood outside the walls of the 
citadel. In the distance was the ancient, but still 
almost perfect, Temple of Theseus, and close by, 
looking to the West, was the Bema, from whence 
Demosthenes thundered his philippics and fired the 
wavering patriotism of his countrymen. To the 
right was Mars Hill, where the Areopagus sat in 
ancient times, and where St. Paul defined his posi- 
tion, and below was the market-place where he ** dis- 
puted daily " with the gossip-loving Athenians. We 
climbed the stone steps St. Paul ascended, and 
stood in the square-cut place he stood in, and tried 
to recollect the Bible account of the matter — but 
for certain reasons, I could not recall the words. I 
have found them since : 

"Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred 
in him, when he saw the city wholly given up to idolatry. 

"Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the 
devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him. 

" And they took him and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May 
We know what this new doctrine whereof thou speakest is? 

"Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars hill, and said, Ye men oi 
Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious; 

" For as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar 
with this inscription: To THE Unknown God. Whom, therefore, ye 
ignoranlly worship, him declare I unto you." — Acfs, ch. xvii. 



?0 The Innocents Abroad 

It occurred to us, after a while, that if we wanted 
to get home before daylight betrayed us, we had 
better be moving. So we hurried away. When 
far on our road, we had a parting view of the Par- 
thenon, with the moonlight streaming through its 
open colonnades and touching its capitals with 
silver. As it looked then, solemn, grand, and 
beautiful, it will always remain in our memories. 

As we marched along, we began to get over our 
fears, and ceased to care much about quarantine 
scouts or anybody else. We grew bold and reck- 
less; and once, in a sudden burst of courage, I even 
threw a stone at a dog. It was a pleasant reflection, 
though, that I did not hit him, because his master 
might just possibly have been a policeman. Inspired 
by this happy failure, my valor became utterly un- 
controllable, and at intervals I absolutely whistled, 
though on a moderate key. But boldness breeds 
boldness, and shortly I plunged into a vineyard, in 
the full light of the moon, and captured a gallon of 
superb grapes, not even minding the presence of a 
peasant who rode by on a mule. Denny and Birch 
followed my example. Now I had grapes enough 
for a dozen, but then Jackson was all swollen up 
with courage, too, and he was obliged to enter a 
vineyard presently. The first bunch he seized 
brought trouble. A frowsy, bearded brigand sprang 
into the road with a shout, and flourished a musket 
in the light of the moon ! We sidled toward the 
Piraeus—- not running, you understand, but only 



The Innocents Abroad 7i 

advancing with celerity. The brigand shouted again, 
but still we advanced. It was getting late, and we 
had no time to fool away on every ass that wanted 
to drivel Greek platitudes to us. We would just as 
soon have talked with him as not if we had not been 
in a hurry. Presently Denny said, ** Those fellows 
are following us !" 

We turned, and, sure enough, there they were — 
three fantastic pirates armed with guns. We slack- 
ened our pace to let them come up, and in the 
meantime I got out my cargo of grapes and dropped 
them firmly but reluctantly into the shadows by the 
wayside. But I was not afraid. I only felt that it 
was not right to steal grapes. And all the more so 
when the owner was around — and not only around, 
but with his friends around also. The villains came 
up and searched a bundle Dr. Birch had in his hand, 
and scowled upon him when they found it had 
nothing in it but some holy rocks from Mars Hill, 
and these were not contraband. They evidently 
suspected him of playing some wretched fraud upon 
them, and seemed half inclined to scalp the party. 
But finally they dismissed us with a warning, 
couched in excellent Greek, I suppose, and dropped 
tranquilly in our wake. When they had gone three 
hundred yards they stopped, and we went on re- 
joiced. But behold, another armed rascal came out 
of the shadows and took their place, and followed 
us two hundred yards. Then he delivered us over 
to another miscreant, who emerged from some mys- 



72 The innocents Abroad 

terious place, and he in turn to another! For a 
mile and a half our rear was guarded all the while 
by armed men. I never traveled in so much state 
before in all my life. 

It was a good while after that before we ventured 
to steal any more grapes, and when we did we stirred 
up another troublesome brigand, and then we ceased 
all further speculation in that line. I suppose that 
fellow that rode by on the mule posted all the 
sentinels, from Athens to the Piraeus, about us. 

Every field on that long route was watched by an 
armed sentinel, some of whom had fallen asleep, no 
doubt, but were on hand, nevertheless. This shows 
what sort of a country modern Attica is — a com- 
munity of questionable characters. These men were 
not there to guard their possessions against strangers, 
but against each other; for strangers seldom visit 
Athens and the Piraeus, and when they do, they go 
in daylight, and can buy all the grapes they want 
for a trifle. The modern inhabitants are confiscators 
and falsifiers of high repute, if gossip speaks truly 
concerning them, and I freely believe it does. 

Just as the earliest tinges of the dawn flushed the 
eastern sky and turned the pillared Parthenon to a 
broken harp hung in the pearly horizon, we closed 
our thirteenth mile of weary, round-about marching, 
and emerged upon the seashore abreast the ships, 
with our usual escort of fifteen hundred Piraean dogs 
howling at our heels. We hailed a boat that was 
two or three hundred yards from shore, and discov 



The innocents Abroad 73 

ered in a moment that it was a police-boat on the 
lookout for any quarantine breakers that might 
chance to be abroad. So we dodged — we were 
used to that by this time — and when the scouts 
reached the spot we had so lately occupied, we were 
absent. They cruised along the shore, but in the 
wrong direction, and shortly our own boat issued 
from the gloom and took us aboard. They had 
heard our signal on the ship. We rowed noiselessly 
away, and before the police-boat came in sight 
again, we were safe at home once more. 

Four more of our passengers were anxious to visit 
Athens, and started half an hour after we returnid; 
but they had not been ashore five minutes till the 
police discovered and chased them so hotly that they 
barely escaped to their boat again, and that was all. 
They pursued the enterprise no further. 

We set sail for Constantinople to-day, but some 
of us little care for that. We have seen all there was 
to see in the old city that had its birth sixteen hun- 
dred years before Christ was born, and was an old 
town before the foundations of Troy were laid — 
and saw it in its most attractive aspect. Wherefore, 
why should we worry? 

Two other passengers ran the blockade success- 
fully last night. So we learned this morning. They 
slipped away so quietly that they were not m.issed 
from the ship for several hours. They had the 
hardihood to march into the Piraeus in the early 
dusk and hire a carriage. They ran some danger of 



74 The Innocents Abroad 

adding two or three months' imprisonment to the 
other novelties of their Holy Land Pleasure Excur- 
sion. I admire ** cheek."* But they went and 
came safely, and never walked a step. 



♦ Quotation from the PilgriniR. 



CHAPTER VI. 

rROM Athens all through the islands of the 
Grecian Archipelago, we saw little but forbid- 
ding sea-walls and barren hills, sometimes sur- 
mounted by three or four graceful columns of some 
ancient temple, lonely and deserted — a fitting sym- 
bol of the desolation that has come upon all Greece 
in these latter ages. We saw no plowed fields, very 
few villages, no trees or grass or vegetation of any 
kind, scarcely, and hardly ever an isolated house. 
Greece is a bleak, unsmiling desert, without agricul- 
ture, manufactures, or commerce, apparently. What 
supports its poverty-stricken people or its govern- 
ment, is a mystery. 

I suppose that ancient Greece and modern Greece 
compared, furnish the most extravagant contrast to 
be found in history. George I, an infant of eigh- 
teen, and a scraggy nest of foreign office-holders, 
sit in the places of Themistocles, Pericles, and the 
illustrious scholars and generals of the Golden Age 
of Greece. The fleets that were the wonder of the 
world when the Parthenon was new, are a beggarly 
handful of fishing-smacks now, and the manly peo- 

(75) 



76 The Innocents Abroad 

pie that performed such miracles of valor at Marathon 
are only a tribe of unconsidered slaves to-day. The 
classic Ilissus has gone dry, and so have all the 
sources of Grecian wealth and greatness. The 
nation numbers only eight hundred thousand souls, 
and there is poverty and misery and mendacity 
enough among them to furnish forty millions and be 
liberal about it. Under King Otho the revenues of 
the state were five millions of dollars — raised from 
a tax of one-tenth of all the agricultural products of 
the land (which tenth the farmer had to bring to the 
royal granaries on pack-mules any distance not 
exceeding six leagues) and from extravagant taxes 
on trade and commerce. Out of that five milHons 
the small tyrant tried to keep an army of ten thou- 
sand men, pay all the hundreds of useless Grand 
Equerries in Waiting, First Grooms of the Bed- 
chamber, Lord High Chancellors of the Exploded 
Exchequer, and all the other absurdities which these 
puppy-kingdoms indulge in, in imitation of the great 
monarchies ; and in addition he set about building a 
white marble palace to cost about five millions itself. 
The result was, simply : Ten into five goes no times 
and none over. All these things could not be done 
with five millions, and Otho fell into trouble. 

The Greek throne, with Its unpromising adjuncts 
of a ragged population of ingenious rascals who 
were out of employment eight months in the year 
because there was little for them to borrow and less 
to confiscate, and a waste of barren hills and weed* 



The Innocents Abroad 77 

grown deserts, went begging for a good while. It 
was offered to one of Victoria's sons, and afterward 
to various other younger sons of royalty who had no 
thrones and were out of business, but they all had 
the charity to decHne the dreary honor, and venera- 
tion enough for Greece's ancient greatness to refuse 
to mock her sorrowful rags and dirt with a tinsel 
throne in this day of her humiliation — till they 
came to this young Danish George, and he took it., 
He has finished the splendid palace I saw in the radi- 
ant moonlight the other night, and is doing many 
other things for the salvation of Greece, they say. 

We sailed through the barren Archipelago, and 
into the narrow channel they sometimes call the 
Dardanelles and sometimes the Hellespont. This 
part of the country is rich in historic reminiscences, 
and poor as Sahara in everything else. For in- 
stance, as we approached the Dardanelles, we 
coasted along the Plains of Troy and past the mouth 
of the Scamander; we saw where Troy had stood 
(in the distance) , and where it does not stand now 
— a city that perished when the world was young. 
The poor Trojans are all dead now. They were 
born too late to see Noah's ark, and died too soon 
to see our menagerie. We saw where Agamemnon's 
fleets rendezvoused, and away inland a mountain 
which the map said was Mount Ida. Within the 
Hellespont we saw where the original first shoddy 
contract mentioned in history was carried out, and 
the * * parties of the second part ' ' gently rebukH 



73 The Innocents Abroad 

by Xerxes. I speak of the famous bridge of boats 
which Xerxes ordered to be built over the narrowest 
part of the Hellespont (where it is only two or three 
miles wide). A moderate gale destroyed the flimsy 
structure, and the King, thinking that to publicly 
rebuke the contractors might have a good effect on 
the next set, called them out before the army and 
had them beheaded. In the next ten minutes he let 
a new contract for the bridge. It has been observed 
by ancient writers that the second bridge was a very 
good bridge. Xerxes crossed his host of five 
millions of men on it, and if it had not been pur- 
posely destroyed, it would probably have been there 
yet. If our government would rebuke some of our 
shoddy contractors occasionally, it might work much 
good. In the Hellespont we saw where Leander 
and Lord Byron swam across, the one to see her 
upon whom his soul's affections were fixed with a 
devotion that only death could impair, and the 
other merely for a flyer, as Jack says. We had two 
noted tombs near us, too. On one shore slept 
Ajax, and on the other Hecuba. 

We had water batteries and forts on both sides of 
the Hellespont, flying the crimson flag of Turkey, 
with its white crescent, and occasionally a village, 
and sometimes a train of camels ; we had all these 
to look at till we entered the broad sea of Marmora, 
and then the land soon fading from view, we re- 
sumed euchre and whist once more. 

We dropped anchor in the mouth of the Golden 



The Innocents Abroad 79 

Horn at daylight in the morning. Only three or 
four of us were up to see the great Ottoman capital. 
The passengers do not turn out at unseasonable 
hours, as they used to, to get the earliest possible 
glimpse of strange foreign cities. They are well 
over that. If we were lying in sight of the Pyra- 
mids of Egypt, they would not come on deck until 
after breakfast, nowadays. 

The Golden Horn is a narrow arm of the sea, 
which branches from the Bosporus (a sort of broad 
river which connects the Marmora and Black Seas) , 
and, curving around, divides the city in the middle. 
Galata and Pera are on one side of the Bosporus, 
and the Golden Horn; Stamboul (ancient Byzan- 
tium) is upon the other. On the other bank of the 
Bosporus is Scutari and other suburbs of Constanti- 
nople. This great city contains a million inhabitants, 
but so narrow are its streets, and so crowded to- 
gether are its houses, that it does not cover much 
more than half as much ground as New York city. 
Seen from the anchorage or from a mile or so up 
the Bosporus, it is by far the handsomest city we 
have seen. Its dense array of houses swells upward 
from the water's edge, and spreads over the domes 
of many hills ; and the gardens that peep out here 
and there, the great globes of the mosques, and the 
countless minarets that meet the eye everywhere, 
invest the metropolis with the quaint Oriental aspect 
one dreams of when he reads books of Eastern 
travel. Constantinople makes a noble picture* 



80 The Innocents Abroad 

But its attractiveness begins and ends with its 
picturesqueness. From the time one starts ashore 
till he gets back again, he execrates it. The boat 
he goes in is admirably miscalculated for the service 
it is built for. It is handsomely and neatly fitted 
up, but no man could handle it well in the turbulent 
currents that sweep down the Bosporus from the 
Black Sea, and few men could row it satisfactorily 
even in still water. It is a long, light canoe (caique) , 
large at one end and tapering to a knife blade at the 
other. They make that long sharp end the bow, 
and you can imagine how these boiling currents spin 
it about. It has two oars, and sometimes four, and 
no rudder. You start to go to a given point and 
you run in fifty different directions before you get 
there. First one oar is backing water, and then the 
other; it is seldom that both are going ahead at 
once. This kind of boating is calculated to drive an 
impatient man mad in a week. The boatmen are 
the awkwardest, the stupidest, and the most unscien- 
tific on earth, without question. 

Ashore, it was — v/ell, it was an eternal circus. 
People were thicker than bees, in those narrow 
streets, and the men were dressed in all the out- 
rageous, outlandish, idolatrous, extravagant, thunder- 
and-lightning costumes that ever a tailor with the 
delirium tremens and seven devils could conceive of. 
There was no freak in dress too crazy to be indulged 
in ; no absurdity too absurd to be tolerated ; no 
frenzy in ragged diaboljsni too fantastic tp be 



The rnnocents Abroad ^1 

attempted. No two men were dressed alike. It 
was a wild masquerade of all imaginable costumes — 
every struggling throng in every street was a dis- 
solving view of stunning contrasts. Some patriarchs 
wore awful turbans, but the grand mass of the infidel 
horde wore the fiery red skull-cap they call a fez. 
All the remainder of the raiment they indulged \b 
was utterly indescribable. 

The shops here are mere coops, mere boxes, bath- 
rooms, closets — anything you please to call them — 
on the first floor. The Turks sit cross-legged in 
them, and work and trade and smoke long pipes, 
and smell like — like Turks. That covers the groundc 
Crowding the narrow streets in front of them are 
beggars, who beg forever, yet never collect anything; 
and wonderful cripples, distorted out of all semblance 
of humanity, almost; vagabonds driving laden asses; 
porters carrying drygoods boxes as large as cot- 
tages on their backs; peddlers of grapes, hot corn, 
pumpkin seeds, and a hundred other things, yelling 
like fiends; and sleeping happily, comfortably, 
serenely, among the hurrying feet, are the famed 
dogs of Constantinople; drifting noiselessly about 
are squads of Turkish women, draped from chin to 
feet in flowing robes, and with snowy veils bound 
about their heads, that disclose only the eyes and a 
vague, shadowy notion of their features. Seen 
moving about, far away in the dim, arched aisles of 
the Great Bazaar, they look as the shrouded dead 
must have looked when they walked forth from then 



82 The Innocents Abroad 

graves amid the storms and thunders and earthquakes 
that burst upon Calvary that awful night of the 
Crucifixion. A street in Constantinople is a picture 
which one ought to see once — not of tener. 

And then there was the goose-rancher — a fellow 
who drove a hundred geese before him about the 
city, and tried to sell them. He had a pole ten feet 
long, with a crook in the end of it, and occasionally 
a goose would branch out from the flock and make 
a lively break around the corner, with wings half 
lifted and neck stretched to its utmost^ Did the 
goose-merchant get excited? No. He took his 
pole and reached after that goose with unspeakable 
sang froid—^ took a hitch round his neck, and 
"* yanked '* him back to his place in the flock with- 
out an effort. He steered his geese with that stick 
as easily as another man would steer a yawl. A 
fev/ hours afterward we saw him sitting on a stone at 
a corner, in the midst of the turmoil, sound asleep 
in the sun, with his geese squatting around him, or 
dodging out of the way of asses and men» We 
came by again, within the hour, and he was taking 
account of stock, to see whether any of his flock 
had strayed or been stolen. The way he did it was 
unique. He put the end of his stick within six or 
eight inches of a stone wall, and made the geese 
march in single file between it and the wall. He 
counted them as they went by. There was no 
dodging that arrangement. 

If you want dwarfs — I mean just a few dwarfs 



The Innocents Abroad IJ 

for a curiosity — go to Genoa. If you wish to buy 
them by the gross, for retail, go to Milan, There 
are plenty of dwarfs all over Italy, but it did seem 
to me that in Milan the crop was luxuriant. If you 
would see a fair average style of assorted cripples, 
go to Naples, or travel through the Roman states 
But if you would see the very heart and home of 
cripples and human monsters, both, go straight to 
Constantinople^ A beggar In Naples who can show 
a foot which has all run into one horrible toe, with 
one shapeless nail on it, has a fortune — but such 
an exhibition as that would not provoke any notice 
in Constantinople. The man would starve. Who 
would pay any attention to attractions like his among 
the rare monsters that throng the bridges of the 
Golden Horn and display their deformities in the 
gutters of Stamboul? Oh, wretched impostor! 
How could he stand against the three-legged woman ^ 
and the man with his eye in his cheek? How would 
he blush in presence of the man with fingers on his 
elbow? Where would he hide himself when the 
dwarf with seven fingers on each hand, no upper 
lip, and his under-jaw gone, came down in his 
majesty? Bismillah ! The cripples of Europe are 
a delusion and a fraud. The truly gifted flourish 
only in the by-ways of Pera and Stamboul. 

That three-legged woman lay on the bridge, with 
her stock in trade so disposed as to command the 
most striking effect — -one natural leg, and two long, 
slender, twisted ones with feet on them like some- 



M Title Innocents Abroad 

body else's forearm. Then there was a man further 
along who had no eyes, and whose face was the 
color of a liy-blown beefsteak, and wrinkled and 
twisted like a lava-flow — and verily so tumbled and 
distorted were his features that no man could tell the 
wait that served him for a nose from his cheek- 
bones. In Stamboul was a man with a prodigious 
head, an uncommonly long body, legs eight inches 
long, and feet like snow-shoes ^ He traveled on 
those feet and his hands, and was as sway-backed as 
if the Colossus of Rhodes had been riding him. 
Ah, a beggar has to have exceedingly good points 
to make a living in Constantinople. A blue-faced 
man, who had nothing to offer except that he had 
been blown up in a mine, would be regarded as a 
rank impostor, and a mere damaged soldier on 
crutches would never make a cent» It would pay 
him to get a piece of his head taken off, and culti- 
vate a wen like a carpet sack. 

The Mosque of St. Sophia is the chief lion of 
Constantinople. You must get a firman and hurry 
there the first thing. We did that. We did not get 
a firman, but we took along four or five francs 
apiece, which is much the same thing. 

I do not think much of the Mosque of St. Sophia. 
I suppose I lack appreciation. We will let it go at 
that. It is the rustiest old barn in heathendom. I 
believe all the interest that attaches to it comes from 
the fact that it was built for a Christian church and 
then turned into a mosque, without much alteration, 



The Innocents Abroad 85 

by the Mohammedan conquerors of the land. The) 
made me take off my boots and walk into the place 
in my stocking feet.. I caught cold, and got myself 
so stuck up with a complication of gums, slime, and 
general corruption, that I wore out more than two 
thousand pair of boot-jacks getting my boots off 
that night, and even then some Christian hide peeled 
off with them. I abate not a single boot-jack. 

St. Sophia is a colossal church, thirteen or four 
teen hundred years old, and unsightly enough to 
be very, very much older. Its immense dome is 
said to be more wonderful than St. Peter's, but its 
dirt is much more wonderful than its dome, though 
they never mention it. The church has a hundred 
and seventy pillars in it, each a single piece, and all 
of costly marbles of various Idnds, but they came 
from ancient temples at Baalbec, Heliopolis, Athens^ 
and Ephesus, and are battered, ugly, and repulsive. 
They were a thousand years old when this church 
was new, and then the contrast must have been 
ghastly — if Justinian's architects did not trim them 
any. The inside of the dome is figured all over with 
a monstrous inscription in Turkish characters^ 
wrought in gold mosaic, that looks as glaring as a 
circus bill; the pavements and the marble balus- 
trades are all battered and dirty | the perspective is 
marred everywhere by a web of ropes that depend 
from the dizzy height of the dome, and suspend 
countless dingy, coarse oil lam.ps, and ostrich-eggs, 
six or seven feet above the floor. Squatting and 



86 The Innocents Abroad 

sitting in groups, here and there and far and near, 
were ragged Turks reading books, hearing sermons, 
or receiving lessons like children, and in fifty places 
were more of the same sort bowing and straightening 
up, bowing again and getting down to kiss the earth, 
muttering prayers the while, and keeping up their 
gymnastics till they ought to have been tired, if they 
were note 

Everywhere was dirt and dust and dinginess and 
gloom ; everywhere were signs of a hoary antiquity, 
but with nothing touching or beautiful about it; 
everywhere were those groups of fantastic pagans ; 
overhead the gaudy mosaics and the web of lamp- 
ropes — nowhere was there anything to win one's 
love or challenge his admiration. 

The people who go into ecstasies over St. Sophia 
must surely get them out of the guide-book (where 
every church is spoken of as being ** considered by 
good judges to be the most marvelous structure, in 
many respects, that the world has ever seen"). 
Or else they are those old connoisseurs from the 
wilds of New Jersey who laboriously learn the 
difference between a fresco and a fire-plug, and 
from that day forward feel privileged to void their 
critical bathos on painting, sculpture, and architecture 
forevermore. 

We visited the Dancing Dervishes, There were 
twenty-one of them. They wore a long, light- 
colored loose robe that hung to their heels. Each 
m Jib turn went up to the priest (they we^s all 



The Innocents Abroad 99 

within a large circular railing) and bowed profoundly 
and then went spinning away deliriously and took 
his appointed place in the circle, and continued to 
spin. When all had spun themselves to their places^ 
they were about five or six feet apart — and so situ- 
ated, the entire circle of spinning pagans spun itself 
three separate times around the room. It took 
twenty-five minutes to do it. They spun on the 
left foot, and kept themselves going by passing the 
right rapidly before it and digging it against the 
waxed floor. Some of them made incredible 
'• time." Most of them spun around forty times in 
a minute, and one artist averaged about sixty-one 
times a minute, and kept it up during the whole 
twenty-five. His robe filled with air and stood out 
all around him like a balloon. 

They made no noise of any kind, and most of 
them tilted their heads back and closed their eyeSf 
entranced with a sort of devotional ecstasy There 
was a rude kind of music^ part of the time» but the 
musicians were not visible None but spinners were 
allowed within the circle.- A man had to either spin 
or stay outside. It was about as barbarous an ex- 
hibition as we have witnessed yet Then sick per- 
sons came and lay down, and beside them women 
laid their sick children (one a babe at the breast), 
and the patriarch of the Dervishes walked upon 
their bodies : He was supposed to cure their dis- 
eases by trampling upon their breasts or backs or 
standing on the back of their necks This is well 



88 The Innocents Abroad 

enough for a people who think all their affairs 
are made or marred by viewless spirits of the 
air — by giants, gnom.es, and genii — and who 
still believe, to this day, all the wild tales in the 
Arabian Nights. Even so an intelligent missionary 
tells me. 

We visited the Thousand and One Columns. 1 
do not know what it was originally intended for, but 
they said it was built for a reservoir. It is situated 
in the center of Constantinople. You go down a 
flight of stone steps in the middle of a barren place, 
and there you are. You are forty feet underground, 
and in the midst of a perfect wilderness of tall, 
slender, granite columns, of Byzantine architecture. 
Stand where you would, or change your position as 
often as you pleased, you were always a center from 
which radiated a dozen long archways and colon- 
nades that lost themselves in distance and the som- 
ber twilight of the place. This old dried-up reser- 
voir is occupied by a few ghostly silk-spinners now, 
and one of them showed me a cross cut high up in 
one of the pillars. I suppose he meant me to 
understand that the institution was there before the 
Turkish occupation, and I thought he made a re- 
mark to that effect ; but he must have had an im- 
pediment in his speech, for I did not understand 
him. 

We took off our shoes and went into the marble 
mausoleum of the Sultan Mahmoud, the neatest 
piece of architecture, inside, that I have seen lately, 



The innocents Abroad! 89 

Mahmoud's tomb was covered with a blac'k velvet 
pall, which was elaborately embroidered with silver; 
it stood within a fancy silver railing; at the sides 
and corners were silver candlesticks that would 
weigh more than a hundred pounds, and they sup- 
ported candles as large as a man's leg; on the top 
of the sarcophagus was a fez, with a handsome 
diamond ornament upon it, which an attendant said 
cost a hundred thousand pounds, and lied like a 
Turk when he said it. Mahmoud's whole family 
were comfortably planted around him. 

We went to the Great Bazaar in Stamboul, of 
course, and I shall not describe it further than to 
say it is a monstrous hive of little shops — thou- 
sands, I should say — all under one roof, and cut 
up into innumerable little blocks by narrow streets 
which are arched overhead. One street is devoted 
to a particular kind of merchandise, another to 
another, and so on. When you wish to buy a pair 
of shoes you have the swing of the whole street-— 
you do not have to walk yourself down hunting 
stores in different localities, It is the same with 
silks, antiquities, shawls, etc^ The place is crowded 
with people all the time, and as the gay-colored 
Eastern fabrics are lavishly displayed before every 
shop, the Great Bazaar of Stamboul is one of the 
sights that are worth seeing. It is full of life, and 
stir, and business, dirt, beggars, asses, yelling ped- 
dlers, porters, dervishes, high-born Turkish female 
shoppers, Greeks, and weird-looking and weirdly- 



90 The innocents Abroad 

dressed Mohammedans from the mountains and the 
far provinces — and the only sohtary thing one does 
not smell when he is in the Great Bazaar, is some- 
thing which smells good. 



CHAPTER VII. 

MOSQUES are plenty, churches are plenty, grave 
yards are plenty, but morals and whisky are 
scarce. The Koran does not permit Mohammedans 
to drink. Their natural instincts do not permit 
them to be moral. They say the Sultan has eight 
hundred wives. This almost amounts to bigamy. 
It makes our cheeks burn with shame to see such a 
thing permitted here in Turkey. We do not mind 
it so much in Salt Lake, however. 

Circassian and Georgian girls are still sold in Con- 
stantinople by their parents, but not publicly. The 
great slave marts we have all read so much about — 
where tender young girls were stripped for inspec- 
tion, and criticised and discussed just as if they were 
horses at an agricultural fair — no longer exist. 
The exhibition and the sales are private now. 
Stocks are up, just at present, partly because of a 
brisk demand created by the recent return of the 
Sultan's suite from the courts of Europe ; partly on 
account of an unusual abundance of breadstuffs, 
which leaves holders untortured by hunger and 
enables them to hold back for high prices; and 



92 The Innocents Abroao 

partly because buyers are too weak to bear the 
markets while sellers are amply prepared to bull it. 
Under these circumstances, if the American metro- 
politan newspapers were published here in Constan- 
tinoplcj their next commercial report would read 
about as follows, I suppose i 

SLAVE GIRL MARKET REPORT. 

**Best brands Circassians, crop of 1850, ;^20o; 1852, ;^25o; 1854, 
^300. Best brands Georgian, none in market; second quality, 185 1, 
,^180. Nineteen fair to middling Wallachian girls offered at ;i^i30 @ 
150, but no takers; sixteen prime A I sold in small lots to close out — 
terms private. 

*' Sales of one lot Circassians, prime to good, 1852 to 1854, at ;^240 
@ 242^, buyer 30; one forty-niner — damaged — at ^23, seller ten, no 
deposit. Several Georgians, fancy brands, 1852, changed hands to fill 
:)rders. The Georgians now on hand are mostly last year's crop, which 
was unusually poor. The new crop is a little backward, but will be 
coming in shortly. As regards its quantity and quality, the accounts are 
most encouraging. In this connection we can safely say, also, that the 
new crop of Circassians is looking extremely well. His Majesty the 
Sultan ha.s already sent in large orders for his new harem, which will 
be finished within a fortnight, and this has naturally strengthened the 
market and given Circassian stock a strong upward tendency. Taking 
advantage of the inflated market, many of our shrewdest operators are 
Selling short. There are hints of a * comer * on Wallachians. 

*' There is nothing new in Nubians. Slow sale. 

** Eunuchs — none offering; however, large cargoes are expected 
from Egypt to-day." 

I think the above would be about the style of the 
commercial report. Prices are pretty high now, and 
holders firm; but, two or three years ago, parents 
In a starving condition brought their young daugh- 
ters down here and sold them for even twenty and 
thirty dollars, v/hen they could do no better, simply 



The Innocents Abroad 93 

to save themselves and the girls from dying of want. 
It is sad to think of so distressing a thing as this, 
and I for one am sincerely glad the prices are up 
again c 

Commercial morals, especially, are bad. There 
is no gainsaying that. Greek, Turkish, and Arme- 
nian morals consist only in attending church regu- 
larly on the appointed Sabbaths, and in breaking 
the ten commandments all the balance of the week. 
It comes natural to them to lie and cheat in the first 
place, and then they go on and improve on nature 
until they arrive at perfection. In recommending 
his son to a merchant as a valuable salesman, a 
father does not say he is a nice, moral, upright boy, 
and goes to Sunday-school and is honest, but he 
says, ** This boy is worth his weight in broad pieces 
of a hundred — for behold, he will cheat whomsoever 
hath dealings with him, and from the Euxine to the 
waters of Marmora there abideth not so gifted a 
liar!** How is that for a recommendation? The 
missionaries tell me that they hear encomiums like 
that passed upon people every day. They say of a 
person they admire, ** Ah, he is a charming swindler, 
and a most exquisite liar!'* 

Everybody lies and cheats — everybody who is in 
business, at any rate. Even foreigners soon have 
to come down to the custom of the country, and 
they do not buy and sell long in Constantinople till 
they lie and cheat like a Greek I say like a Greek; 
because the Greeks are called the worst transgressors! 



94 TTie Innocents Abroad 

in this line. Several Americans, long resident in 
Constantinople, contend that most Turks are pretty 
trustworthy, but few claim that the Greeks have any 
virtues that a man can discover — at least without a 
fire assay. 

I am half willing to believe that the celebrated dogs 
of Constantinople have been misrepresented — slan- 
dered, I have always been led to suppose that they 
were so thick in the streets that they blocked the 
way; that they moved about in organized com- 
panies, platoons, and regiments, and took what they 
wanted by determined and ferocious assault; and 
that at night they drowned all other sounds with 
their terrible bowlings. The dogs I see here cannot 
be those I have read of. 

I find them everywhere, but not in strong force. 
The most I have found together has been about ten 
or twenty. And night or day a fair proportion of 
them were sound asleep. Those that were not asleep 
always looked as if they wanted to be. I never saw 
such utterly wretched, starving, sad-visaged, broken- 
hearted looking curs in my life. It seemed a grim 
satire to accuse such brutes as these of taking things 
by force of arms. They hardly seemed to have 
strength enough or ambition enough to walk across 
the street — I do not know that I have seen one walk 
that far yet. They are mangy and bruised and muti- 
lated, and often you see one with the hair singed off 
him in such wide and well-defined tracts that he looks 
like a map of the new Territories They are the sor- 



The Innocents Abroad % 

riest beasts that breathe — the most abject — the 
most pitiful. In their faces is a settled expression 
of melancholy, an air of hopeless despondency^ 
The hairless patches on a scalded dog are preferred 
by the fleas of Constantinople to a wider range on a 
healthier dog ; and the exposed places suit the fleas 
exactly, I saw a dog of this kind start to nibble at 
fL flea — a fly attracted his attention, and he made a 
>natch at him; the flea called for him once more, 
»nd that forever unsettled him ; he looked sadly at 
his flea-pasture, then sadly looked at his bald spot. 
Then he heaved a sigh and dropped his head re- 
signedly upon his paws. He was not equal to the 
situation. 

The dogs sleep in the streets, all over the city. 
From one end of the street to the other, I suppose 
they will average about eight or ten to a block. 
Sometimes, of course, there are fifteen or twenty to 
a block. They do not belong to anybody, and they 
seem to have no close personal friendships among 
each other. But they district the city themselves, 
and the dogs of each district, whether it be half a 
block in extent, or ten blocks, have to remain within 
its bounds. Woe to a dog if he crosses the line ! 
His neighbors would snatch the balance of his hair 
off in a second. So it is said. But they don't 
look it. 

They sleep in the streets these days. They are my 
compass — my guide. When I see the dogs sleep 
placidly on, while men, sheep, geese, and all moving 



95 The Innocents Abroad 

things turn out and go around them, I know I am 
not in the great street where the hotel is, and must 
go further. In the Grand Rue the dogs have a sort 
of air of being on the lookout — an air born of being 
obliged to get out of the way of many carriages 
every day — and that expression one recognizes in a 
moment. It does not exist upon the face of any 
dog without the confines of that street. All others 
sleep placidly and keep no watch. They would not 
move, though the Sultan himself passed by. 

In one narrow street (but none of them are wide) 
I saw three dogs lying coiled up, about a foot or two 
apart. End to end they lay, and so they just bridged 
the street neatly, from gutter to gutter. A drove of 
a hundred sheep came along* They stepped right 
over the dogs, the rear crowding the front, impatient 
to get on. The dogs looked lazily up, flinched a 
little when the impatient feet of the sheep touched 
their raw backs-— sighed, and lay peacefully down 
again. No talk could be plainer than that. So 
some of the sheep jumped over them and others 
scrambled between, occasionally chipping a leg with 
their sharp hoofs, and when the whole flock had 
made the trip, the dogs sneezed a littlcp in the cloud 
of dust, but never budged their bodies an inch. I 
thought I was lazy, but I am a steam engine com= 
pared to a Constantinople dog. But was not that a 
singular scene for a city of a million inhabitants? 

These dogs are the scavengers of the city. That 
3S their official position, and a hard one it is. How- 



The Innocents Abroad 9*/ 

ever, it is their protection. But for their usefulness 
in partially cleansing these terrible streets, they 
would not be tolerated long. They eat anything and 
everything that comes in their way, from melon 
rinds and spoiled grapes up through all the grades 
and species of dirt and refuse to their own dead 
friends and relatives — and yet they are always lean, 
always hungry, always despondent. The people 
are loth to kill them — do not kill them, in fact= 
The Turks have an innate antipathy to taking the life 
of any dumb animal, it is said. But they do worse. 
They hang and kick and stone and scald these 
wretched creatures to the very verge of death, and 
then leave them to live and suffer. 

Once a Sultan proposed to kill off all the dogs 
here, and did begin the work — but the populace 
raised such a howl of horror about it that the mas- 
sacre was stayed. After a while, he proposed to re- 
move them all to an island in the Sea of Marmora. 
No objection was offered, and a ship-load or so was 
taken away. But when it came to be known that 
somehow or other the dogs never got to the island, 
but always fell overboard in the night and perished, 
another howl was raised and the transportation 
scheme was dropped. 

So the dogs remain in peaceable possession of the 
streets. I do not say that they do not howl at night, 
nor that they do not attack people who have not a 
red fez on their heads. I only say that it would be 
mean for me to accuse them of these unseemly 



98 The Innocents Abroad 

things who have not seen them do them with my own 
eyes or heard them with my own ears. 

I was a Httle surprised to see Turks and Greeks 
playing newsboy right here in the mysterious land 
where the giants and genii of the Arabian Nights 
once dwelt — where winged horses and hydra-headed 
dragons guarded enchanted castles — where Princes 
and Princesses flew through the air on carpets that 
obeyed a mystic talisman -— where cities whose 
houses were made of precious stones sprang up in a 
night under the hand of the magician, and where 
busy marts were suddenly stricken with a spell and 
each citizen lay or sat, or stood with weapon raised 
or foot advanced, just as he was, speechless and 
motionless, till time had told a hundred years ! 

It was curious to see newsboys selling papers in so 
dreamy a land as that. And, to say truly, it is com- 
paratively a new thing here. The selling of news- 
papers had its birth in Constantinople about a year 
ago, and was a child of the Prussian and Austrian 
war. 

There is one paper published here in the English 
language — The Levant Herald — and there are gen- 
erally a number of Greek and a few French papers 
rising and falling, struggling up and falling again. 
Newspapers are not popular with the Sultan's Gov- 
ernment, They do not understand journalism. The 
proverb says, **The unknown is always great.** To 
the court, the newspaper is a mysterious and rascally 
rjQstitution. They know what a pestilence is, because 



The Innocents Abroadl 99 

they have one occasionally that thins the people out 
at the rate of two thousand a day, and they regard a 
newspaper as a mild form of pestilencec When it 
goes astray, they suppress it — pounce upon it with- 
out warning, and throttle it. When it don*t go 
astray for a long time, they get suspicious and 
throttle it anyhow, because they think it is hatching 
deviltry. Imagine the Grand Vizier in solemn coun- 
cil with the magnates of the realm, spelling his way 
through the hated newspaper, and finally delivering 
his profound decision: *' This thing means mischiei 
— it is too darkly, too suspiciously inoffensive — 
suppress it! Warn the publisher that we cannot 
have this sort of thing: put the editor in prison! " 
The newspaper business has its inconveniences in 
Constantinople. Two Greek papers and one French 
one were suppressed here within a few days of each 
other. No victories of the Cretans are allowed to be 
printed. From time to time the Grand Vizier sends 
a notice to the various editors that the Cretan insur- 
rection is entirely suppressed, and although that 
editor knows better, he still has to print the notice. 
The Levant Herald is too fond of speaking praise^ 
fully of Americans to be popular with the Sultan, 
who does not relish our sympathy with the Cretans, 
and therefore that paper has to be particularly cir^ 
cumspect in order to keep out of trouble. Once the 
editor, forgetting the official notice in his paper that 
the Cretans were crushed out, printed a letter of a 
very different tenor, from the American Consul in 



nOO The Innocents Abroad 

Crete, and was fined two hundred and fifty dollars 
for it. Shortly he printed another from the same 
source and was imprisoned three months for his 
pains. I think I could get the assistant editorship 
of the Levant Herald^ but I am going to try to 
worry along without it. 

To suppress a paper here involves the ruin of the 
publisher, almost. But in Naples I think they specu- 
late on misfortunes of that kind. Papers are sup- 
pressed there every day, and spring up the next day 
under a new name. During the ten days or a fort- 
night we stayed there one paper was murdered and 
resurrected twice. The newsboys are smart there, 
just as they are elsewhere. They take advantage of 
popular v/eaknesses. When they find they are not 
likely to sell out, they approach a citizen mysteri- 
ously, and say in a low voice — "Last copy, sir: 
double price; paper just been suppressed!" The 
man buys it, of course, and finds nothing in it. 
They do say — I do not vouch for it — but they do 
say that men sometimes print a vast edition of a 
paper, with a ferociously seditious article in it, dis- 
tribute it quickly among the newsboys, and clear out 
till the Government's indignation cools. It pays 
well. Confiscation don't amount to anything. The 
type and presses are not worth taking care of. 

There is only one English newspaper in Naples. It 
has seventy subscribers. The publisher is getting 
rich very deliberately — very deliberately indeed. 

I shall never want another Turkish lunch- The 



The Innocents Abroad 101 

cooking apparatus was in a little lunch-room, near 
the bazaar, and it was all open to the street. The 
cook was slovenly, and so was the table, and it had 
no cloth on it. The fellow took a mass of sausage 
meat and coated it round a wire and laid it on a 
charcoal fire to cook. When it was done, he laid it 
aside and a dog walked sadly in and nipped it. He 
smelt it first, and probably recognized the remains of 
a friend. The cook took it away from him and laid 
it before us. Jack said, ** I pass'* — he plays 
euchre sometimes — and we all passed in turn. Then 
the cook baked a broad, flat, wheaten cake, greased 
it well with the sausage, and started towards us with it. 
It dropped in the dirt, and he picked it up and pol- 
ished it on his breeches, and laid it before us. Jack 
said, *' I pass.'* We all passed. He put some eggs 
in a frying-pan, and stood pensively prying slabs of 
meat from between his teeth with a fork. Then he 
used the fork to turn the eggs with — and brought 
them along. Jack said ** Pass again.** All followed 
suit. We did not know what to do, and so we ordered 
a new ration of sausage. The cook got out his 
wire, apportioned a proper amount of sausage-meat^ 
spat on his hands, and fell to work ! This time, 
with one accord, we all passed out. We paid and 
left. That is all I learned about Turkish lunches. 
A Turkish lunch is good, no doubt, but it has its 
little drawbacks. 

When I think how I have been swindled by books 
of Oriental travel, I want a tourist for breakfast Fof 



i6i The Innocents Abroad 

years and years I have dreamed of the wonders of 
the Turkish bath ; for years and years I have prom- 
ised myself that I would yet enjoy one. Many and 
many a time, in fancy, I have lain in the marble 
bath, and breathed the slumbrous fragrance of East- 
ern spices that filled the air; then passed through a 
weird and complicated system of pulling and haul- 
ing and drenching and scrubbing, by a gang of 
naked savages who loomed vast and vaguely through 
the steaming mists, like demons; then rested for 
a while on a divan fit for a king; then passed through 
another complex ordeal, and one more fearful than 
the first; and, finally, swathed in soft fabrics, been 
conveyed to a princely saloon and laid on a bed of 
eiderdown, where eunuchs, gorgeous of costume, 
fanned me while I drowsed and dreamed, or content- 
edly gazed at the rich hangings of the apartment, the 
soft carpets, the sumptuous furniture, the pictures, 
and drank delicious coffee, smoked the soothing 
narghili, and dropped, at the last, into tranquil re- 
pose, lulled by sensuous odors from unseen censers, 
by the gentle influence of the narghili 's Persian 
tobacco, and by the music of fountains that counter- 
feited the pattering of summer rain. 

That was the picture, just as I got it from incen- 
diary books of travel. It was a poor, miserable im- 
posture. The reality is no more like it than the Five 
Points are like the Garden of Eden. They received 
me in a great court, paved with marble slabs; around 
at were broad galleries, one above another, carpeted 



The innocents Abroad I03 

with seedy matting, railed with unpainted balus- 
trades, and furnished with huge rickety chairs, cush- 
ioned with rusty old mattresses, indented with im- 
pressions left by the forms of nine successive gener- 
ations of men who had reposed upon them. The 
place was vast, naked, dreary; its court a barn, its 
galleries stalls for human horses. The cadaverous, 
half-nude varlets that served in the establishment had 
nothing of poetry in their appearance, nothing of 
romance, nothing of Oriental splendor. They shed 
no entrancing odors — just the contrary. Their 
hungry eyes and their lank forms continually sug- 
gested one glaring, unsentimental fact — they wanted 
what they term in California *' a square meal." 

I went into one of the racks and undressed. An 
unclean starveling wrapped a gaudy tablecloth about 
his loins, and hung a white rag over my shoulders^ 
If I had had a tub then, it would have come natural 
to me to take in washing. I was then conducted 
down stairs into the wet, slippery court, and the first 
things that attracted my attention were my heels. 
My fall excited no comment. They expected it, no 
doubt. It belonged in the hst of softening, sensuous 
influences peculiar to this home of Eastern luxury. 
It was softening enough, certainly, but its application 
was not happy. They now gave me a pair of 
wooden clogs — benches in miniature, with leather 
straps over them to confine my feet (which they 
would have done, only I do not wear No. 13s). 
These things dangled uncomfortably by the straps 



i04 The innocents Abroaa 

when I lifted up my feet, and came down in awkward 
and unexpected places when I put them on the floor 
again, and sometimes turned sideways and wrenched 
my ankles out of joint. However, it was all Oriental 
luxury, and I did what I could to enjoy it. 

They put me in another part of the barn and laid 
me on a stuffy sort of pallet, which was not made of 
cloth of gold, or Persian shawls, but was merely the 
unpretending sort of thing I have seen in the negro 
quarters of Arkansas. There was nothing whatever 
in this dim marble prison but five more of these 
bierSc It was a very solemn place. I expected that 
the spiced odors of Araby were going to steal over 
my senses now, but they did not, A copper-colored 
skeleton, with a rag around him, brought me a glass 
decanter of water, with a lighted tobacco pipe in the 
top of it, and a pliant stem a yard long, with a brass 
mouth-piece to it. 

It was the famous ** narghili '* of the East — the 
thing the Grand Turk smokes in the pictures. This 
began to look like luxury, I took one blast at it, 
and it was sufficient ; the smoke went in a great vol- 
ume down into my stomach, my lungs, even into the 
uttermost parts of my frame. I exploded one mighty 
cough, and it was as if Vesuvius had let go. For the 
next five minutes I smoked at every pore, like a 
frame house that is on fire on the inside. Not any 
more narghili for me. The smoke had a vile taste, 
and the taste of a thousand infidel tongues that re- 
mained on that brass mouthpiece was viler still. I 



The Innocents Abroad 105 

was getting discouraged. Whenever, hereafter, I see 
the cross-legged Grand Turk smoking his narghili, 
in pretended bliss, on the outside of a paper of Con- 
necticut tobacco, I shall know him for the shameless 
humbug he is. 

This prison was filled with hot air. When I had 
got warmed up sufficiently to prepare me for a still 
warmer temperature, they took me where it was — 
into a marble room, wet, slippery, and steamy, and 
laid me out on a raised platform in the center. It 
was very warm. Presently my man sat me down 
by a tank of hot water, drenched me well, gloved his 
hand with a coarse mitten, and began to polish me 
all over with it, I began to smell disagreeably. 
The more he polished the worse I smelt. It was 
alarming. I said to him: 

** I perceive that I am pretty far gone. It is 
plain that I ought to be buried without any unnec- 
essary delay. Perhaps you had better go after my 
friends at once, because the weather is warm, and 
I cannot * keep * long.'* 

He went on r^rubbing, and paid no attention. I 
soon saw that he was reducing my size. He bore 
hard on his mitten, and from under it rolled little 
cylinders, like macaroni. It could not be dirt, for 
it was too white. He pared me down in this way 
for a long time. Finally I said : 

*' It is a tedious process. It will take hours to 
trim me to the size you want me; I will wait; go 
and borrow a jack-plane/* 



f06 The innocents Abroaa 

He paid no attention at all. 

After a while he brought a basin, some soap, and 
something that seemed to be the tail of a horse. He 
made up a prodigious quantity of soapsuds, deluged 
me with them from head to foot, without warning 
me to shut my eyes, and then swabbed me viciously 
with the horse-tail. Then he left me there, a snowy 
Statue of lather, and went away* When I got tired 
of waiting I went and hunted him up. He was 
propped against the wall, in another room, asleep. 
I woke him. He was not disconcerted He took me 
back and flooded me with hot water, then turbaned 
my head, swathed me with dry tablecloths, and con- 
ducted me to a latticed chicken-coop in one of the 
galleries, and pointed to one of those Arkansas beds. 
I mounted it, and vaguely expected the odors of 
Araby again. They did not come. 

The blank, unornamented coop had nothing about 
It of that oriental voluptuousness one reads of so 
much. It was more suggestive of the county hospi- 
tal than anything else. The skinny servitor brought 
a narghili, and I got him to take it out again without 
wasting any time about it Then he brought the 
world-renowned Turkish coffee that poets have sung 
Bo rapturously for many generations, and I seized 
upon it as the last hope that was left of my old 
dreams of Eastern luxury. It was another fraud. 
Of all the unchristian beverages that ever passed my 
lips, Turkish coffee is the worst The cup is small, 
'f^ h smeared with grounds : the coffee is black, thick, 



The Innocents Abroad 10? 

unsavory of smell, and execrable in taste. The bot- 
tom of the cup has a muddy sediment in it half an 
inch deep. This goes down your throat, and por- 
tions of it lodge by the way, and produce a tickling 
aggravation that keeps you barking and coughing for 
an hour. 

Here endeth my experience of the celebrated Turk- 
ish bath, and here also endeth my dream of the bliss 
the mortal revels in who passes through it. It is a 
malignant swindle. The man who enjoys it is quali- 
fied to enjoy anything that is repulsive to sight or 
sense, and he that can invest it with a charm of 
poetry is able to do the same with anything else in 
the world that is tedious, and wretched^ and dismal, 
and nasty. 



CHAPTER VIII 

WE left a dozen passengers in Constantinople, and 
sailed through the beautiful Bosporus and far 
ap into the Black Sea. We left them in the clutches 
of the celebrated Turkish guide, ** FAR-AWAY 
Moses,'* who will seduce them into buying a 
shipload of ottar of roses, splendid Turkish vest- 
ments, and all manner of curious things they can 
never have any use for. Murray's invaluable guide- 
books have mentioned Far-away Moses* name, and 
he is a made man. He rejoices daily in the fact 
that he is a recognized celebrity. However, we can- 
not alter our established customs to please the whims 
of guides; we cannot show partialities this late in 
the day. Therefore, ignoring this fellow's brilliant 
fame, and ignoring the fanciful name he takes such 
pride in, we called him Ferguson, just as we had 
done with all other guides. It has kept him in a 
state of smothered exasperation all the time. Yet 
we meant him no harm. After he has gotten him- 
self up regardless of expense, in showy, baggy 
irowsers, yellow, pointed slippers, fiery fez, silken 
}acket of blue, voluminous waist-sash of fancy 

(T08) 



The Innocents Abroad 109 

Persian stuff filled with a battery of silver-mounted 
horse-pistols, and has strapped on his terrible 
scimeter, he considers it an unspeakable humiliation 
to be called Ferguson. It cannot be helped. All 
guides are Ferguson to us. We cannot master their 
dreadful foreign names. 

Sebastopol is probably the worst battered town in 
Russia or anywhere else. But we ought to be 
pleased with it, nevertheless, for we have been in no 
country yet where we have been so kindly received, 
and where we felt that to be Americans was a suffi- 
cient vis^ for our passports. The moment the anchor 
was down, the Governor of the town immediately 
dispatched an officer on board to inquire if he could 
be of any assistance to us, and to invite us to make 
ourselves at home in Sebastopol ! If you know 
Russia, you know that this was a wild stretch of 
hospitality. They are usually so suspicious of stran- 
gers that they worry them excessively with the delays 
and aggravations incident to a complicated passport 
system. Had we come from any other country we 
could not have had permission to enter Sebastopol 
and leave again under three days — but as it was, we 
were at liberty to go and come when and where we 
pleased. Everybody in Constantinople warned us to 
be very careful about our passports, see that they 
were strictly en regie y and never to mislay them for a 
moment ; and they told us of num.erous instances of 
Englishmen and others who were delayed days, 
weeks, and even months, in Sebastopol, on account 



110 The Innocents Abroad 

of trifling informalities in their passports, and for 
which they were not to blame, I had lost my pass- 
port, and was traveling imder my room-mate's, who 
stayed behind in Constantinople to await our return. 
To read the description of him in that passport and 
then look at me, any man could see that I was no 
more like him than I am like Hercules. So I went 
into the harbor of Sebastopol with fear and trem- 
bling—full of a vague, horrible apprehension that I 
was going to be found out and hanged. But all that 
time my true passport had been floating gallantly 
overhead — and behold it was only our flag. They 
never asked us for any other. 

We have had a great many Russian and English 
gentlemen and ladies on board to-day, and the time 
has passed cheerfully away. They were all happy- 
spirited people, and I never heard our mother tongue 
sound so pleasantly as it did when it fell from those 
English lips in this far-off land. I talked to the 
Russians a good deal, Just to be friendly, and they 
talked to me from the same motive ; I am sure that 
both enjoyed the conversation, but never a word of 
it either of us understood , I did most of my talk- 
ing to those English people though, and I am sorry 
we cannot carry some of them along with us. 

We have gone whithersoever we chose, to-day, 
and have met with nothing but the kindest atten- 
tions. Nobody inquired whether we had any pass- 
ports or noto 

Several of the officers of the government have 



The Innocents Abroad Hi 

suggested that we take the ship to a Httle watering- 
place thirty miles from here, and pay the Emperor 
of Russia a visit. He is rusticating there. These 
officers said they would take it upon themselves to 
Insure us a cordial reception. They said if we 
tvould go, they would not only telegraph the Em- 
peror, but send a special courier overland to an- 
nounce our coming. Our time is so short, though, 
and more especially our coal is so nearly out, that 
we judged it best to forego the rare pleasure of hold- 
ing social intercourse with an Emperor 

Ruined Pompeii is in good condition compared to 
Sebastopol. Here, you may look in whatsoever 
direction you please, and your eye encounters 
scarcely anything but ruin, ruin, ruin! — fragments 
of houses, crumbled walls, torn and ragged hills, 
devastation everywhere ! It is as if a mighty earth- 
quake had spent all its terrible forces upon this one 
little spot For eighteen long months the storms of 
war beat upon the helpless town, and left it at last 
the saddest wreck that ever the sun has looked 
upon. Not one solitary house escaped unscathed—- 
not one remained habitable, even Such utter and 
complete ruin one could hardly conceive of. The 
houses had all been sohd, dressed-stone structures; 
most of them were plowed through and through by 
cannon-balls — unroofed and sliced down from eaves 
to foundation — and now a row of them, half a mile 
long, looks merely like an endless procession of 
battered chimneys. No semblance of a house re 



112 The Innocents Abroad 

mains in such as these. Some of the larger build 
ings had corners knocked off; pillars cut in two; 
cornices smashed ; holes driven straight through the 
walls. Many of these holes are as round and as 
cleanly cut as if they had been made with an auger. 
Others are half pierced through, and the clean im- 
pression is there in the rock, as smooth and as 
shapely as if it were done in putty. Here and there 
a ball still sticks in a wall, and from it iron tears 
trickle down and discolor the stone. 

The battle-fields were pretty close together. The 
Malakoff tower is on a hill which is right in the edge 
of the town. The Redan was within rifle-shot of 
the Malakoff; Inkerman was a mile away; and 
Balaklava removed but an hour's ride. The French 
trenches, by which they approached and invested 
the Malakoff, were carried so close under its sloping 
^ides that one might have stood by the Russian guns 
and tossed a stone into them. Repeatedly, during 
three terrible days, they swarmed up the little 
Malakoff hill, and were beaten back with terrible 
slaughter. Finally, they captured the place, and 
drove the Russians out, who then tried to retreat 
into the town, but the English had taken the Redan, 
and shut them off with a wall of flame ; there was 
nothing for them to do but go back and retake the 
Malakoff or die under its guns. They did go back ; 
they took the Malakoff and retook it two or three 
times, but their desperate valor could not avail, and 
they had to give up at last 



The Innocents Abroad 113 

These fearful fields, where such tempests of death 
used to rage, are peaceful enough now; no sound is 
heard, hardly a living thing moves about them, they 
are lonely and silent — their desolation is complete. 

There was nothing else to do, and so everybody 
went to hunting relics. They have stocked the ship 
with them. They brought them from the Malakoff, 
from the Redan, Inkerman, Balaklava — everywhere. 
They have brought cannon-balls, broken ramrods, 
fragments of shell — iron enough to freight a sloop. 
Some have even brought bones — brought them 
laboriously from great distances, and were grieved 
to hear the surgeon pronounce them only bones of 
mules and oxen. I knew Blucher would not lose an 
opportunity like this. He brought a sack full on 
board and was going for another. I prevailed upon 
him not to go. He has already turned his state- 
room into a museum of worthless trumpery, which 
he has gathered up in his travels. He is labeling 
his trophies, now. I picked up one a while ago, and 
found it marked " Fragment of a Russian General." 
I carried it out to get a better hght upon it — it was 
nothing but a couple of teeth and part of the jaw- 
bone of a horse. I said with some asperity : 

** Fragment of a Russian General ! This is ab- 
surd. Are you never going to learn any sense?'* 

He only said: ** Go slow — the old woman won't 
know any different." [His aunt.] 

This person gathers mementoes with a perfect 
recklessness, nowadays ; mixes them all up together- 



114 The Innocents Abroad 

and then serenely labels them without any regard to 
truth, propriety, or even plausibility. I have found 
him breaking a stone in two, and labeling half of it 
" Chunk busted from the pulpit of Demosthenes," 
and the other half ** Darnick from the Tomb of 
Abelard and Heloise." I have known hkn to gather 
up a handful of pebbles by the roadside, and bring 
them on board ship and label them as coming from 
twenty celebrated localities five hundred miles apart. 
I remonstrate against these outrages upon reason 
and truth, of course, but it does no good. I get the 
same tranquil, unanswerable reply every time : 

** It don't signify* — the old woman won't know 
any different." 

Ever since we three or four fortunate ones made 
the midnight trip to Athens, it has afforded him 
genuine satisfaction to give everybody in the ship a 
pebble from the Mars Hill where St. Paul preached. 
He got all those pebbles on the seashore, abreast 
the ship, but professes to have gathered them from 
one of our party. However, it is not of any use foi 
me to expose the deception — it affords him pleas- 
ure, and does no harm to anybody. He says he 
never expects to run out of mementoes of St. Paul 
as long as he is in reach of a sand bank. Well, he 
is no worse than others. I notice that all travelers 
supply deficiencies in their collections in the same 
way. I shall never have any confidence in such 
things again while I live. 



CHAPTER IX. 

WE have got so far East now — a hundred and 
fifty-five degrees of longitude from San Fran- 
cisco — that my watch cannot * * keep the hang ' * of 
the time any more. It has grown discouraged, and 
stopped. I think it did a wise thing. The differ- 
ence in time between Sebastopol and the Pacific 
coast is enormous. When it is six o'clock in the 
morning here, it is somewhere about week before 
last in California. We are excusable for getting a 
little tangled as to time. These distractions and dis- 
tresses about the time have worried me so much that 
I was afraid my mind was so much affected that I 
never would have any appreciation of time again ; 
but when I noticed how handy I was yet about 
comprehending when it was dinner-time, a blessed 
tranquillity settled down upon me, and I am tortured 
with doubts and fears no more. 

Odessa is about twenty hours' run from Sebas- 
topol, and is the most northerly port in the Black 
Sea. We came here to get coal, principally The 
city has a population of one hundred and thirty-three 
thousand, and is growing faster than any other small 

H», (115) 



116 The Innocents Abroad 

city out of America. It is a free port, and is the 
great grain mart of this particular part of the world. 
Its roadstead is full of ships. Engineers are at 
work, now, turning the open roadstead into a 
spacious artificial harbor. It is to be almost in- 
closed by massive stone piers, one of which will 
extend into the sea over three thousand feet in a 
straight line. 

I have not felt so much at home for a long time 
as I did when I ** raised the hill" and stood in 
Odessa for the first time. It looked just like an 
American city; fine, broad streets, and straight as 
well; low houses (two or three stories), wide, neat, 
and free from any quaintness of architectural orna- 
mentation; locust trees bordering the sidewalks 
(they call them acacias) ; a stirring, business -look 
about the streets and the stores ; fast walkers ; a 
familiar new look about the houses and everything ; 
yea, and a driving and smothering cloud of dust that 
was so like a message from our own dear native 
land that we could hardly refrain from shedding a 
few grateful tears and execrations in the old time- 
honored American way. Look up the street or 
down the street, this way or that way, we saw only 
America ! There was not one thing to remind us 
that we were in Russia. We walked for some little 
distance, reveling in this home vision, and then we 
came upon a church and a hack-driver, and presto ! 
the illusion vanished ! The church had a slender- 
spired dome that rounded inward at its base, and 



The Innocents Abroad 117 

looked like a turnip turned upside down, and the 
hackman seemed to be dressed in a long petticoat 
without any hoops. These things were essentially 
foreign, and so were the carriages — but everybody 
knows about these things, and there is no occasion 
for my describing them. 

We were only to stay here a day and a night and 
take in coal ; we consulted the guide-books and were 
rejoiced to know that there were no sights in Odessa 
to see; and so we had one good, untrammeled 
holiday on our hands, with nothing to do but idle 
about the city and enjoy ourselves. We sauntered 
through the markets and criticised the fearful and 
wonderful costumes from the back country ; exam- 
ined the populace as far as eyes could do it; and 
closed the entertainment with an ice-cream debauch. 
We do not get ice-cream everywhere, and so, when 
we do, we are apt to dissipate to excess. We 
never cared anything about ice-cream at home, but 
we look upon it with a sort of idolatry now that it is 
so scarce in these red-hot climates of the East. 

We only found two pieces of statuary, and this 
was another blessing. One was a bronze image of 
the Due de Richelieu, grandnephew of the splendid 
Cardinal. It stood in a spacious, handsome prom- 
enade, overlooking the sea, and from its base a vast 
flight of stone steps led down to the harbor — two 
hundred of them, fifty feet long, and a wide landing 
at the bottom of every twenty. It is a noble stair- 
case, and from a distance the people toiling up it 



118 The Innocents Abroad 

looked like insects. I mention this statue and this 
stairway because they have their story. Richelieu 
founded Odessa — watched over it with paternal 
care — labored with a fertile brain and a wise under- 
standing for its best interests — spent his fortune 
freely to the same end — endowed it with a sound 
prosperity, and one which will yet make it one of 
the great cities of the Old World — built this noble 
stairway with money from his own private purse — 

and Well, the people for whom he had done 

so much let him walk down these same steps, one 
day, unattended, old, poor, without a second coat 
to his back; and when, years afterward, he died in 
Sebastopol in poverty and neglect, they called a 
meeting, subscribed liberally, and immediately 
erected this tasteful monument to his memory, and 
named a great street after him. It reminds me of 
what Robert Burns* mother said when they erected 
a stately monument to his memory; ** Ah, Robbie, 
ye asked them for bread and they hae gi'en ye a 
stane." 

The people of Odessa have warmly recommended 
us to go and call on the Emperor, as did the Sebas- 
topolians. They have telegraphed his Majesty, and 
he has signified his willingness to grant us an audi- 
ence. So we are getting up the anchors and pre- 
paring to sail to his watering-place. What a scratch- 
ing around there will be now! what a holding of 
important meetings and appointing of solemn com- 
mittees \ — and what a furbishing up of claw-hammer 



The Innocents Abroad 119 

coats and white silk neckties I As this fearful ordeal 
we are about to pass through pictures itself to my 
fancy in all its dread sublimity, I begin to feel my 
fierce desire to converse with a genuine Emperor 
cooling down and passing away. What am I to do 
with my hands? What am I t2 €o with my feet? 
What in the world am I to do with myself? 



CHAPTER X. 

WE anchored here at Yalta, Russia, two or three 
days ago. To me the place was a vision of 
the Sierras. The tall, gray mountains that back it, 
their sides bristling with pines — cloven with ravines 
— here and there a hoary rock towering into view — 
long, straight streaks sweeping down from the sum- 
mit to the sea, marking the passage of some ava- 
lanche of former times — all these were as like what 
one sees in the Sierras as if the one were a portrait 
of the other. The little village of Yalta nestles at 
the foot of an amphitheater which slopes backward 
and upward to the wall of hills, and looks as if it 
might have sunk quietly down to its present position 
from a higher elevation. This depression is covered 
with the great parks and gardens of noblemen, and 
through the mass of green foliage the bright colors 
of their palaces bud out here and there like flowers. 
It is a beautiful spot. 

We had the United States consul on board — the 
Odessa consul. We assembled in the cabin and 
commanded him to tell us what we must do to be 
saved, and tell us quickly. He made a speech. 

(120) 



The Innocents Abroad 12i 

The first thing he said fell like a blight on every 
hopeful spirit; he had never seen a court reception,- 
(Three groans for the consul.) But he said he had 
seen receptions at the Governor-General's in Odessa^ 
and had often listened to people's experiences of 
receptions at the Russian and other courts, and be« 
lieved he knew very well what sort of ordeal we were 
about to essayo (Hope budded again.) He said 
we were many; the summer-palace was small — -a 
mere mansion ; doubtless we should be received in 
summer fashion — in the garden ; we would stand in 
a row, all the gentlemen in swallow-tail coats, white 
kids, and white neckties, and the ladies in light- 
colored silks, or something of that kind; at the 
proper moment — 12 meridian — the Emperor, at- 
tended by his suite arrayed in splendid uniforms^ 
would appear and walk slowly along the line, bowing 
to some, and saying two or three words to others. 
At the moment his Majesty appeared, a universal^ 
delighted, enthusiastic smile ought to break out like 
a rash among the passengers — a smile of love, of 
gratification, of admiration — and with one accord, 
the party must begin to bow — not obsequiously ^ 
but respectfully, and with dignity; at the end of 
fifteen minutes the Emperor would go in the house, 
and we could run along home again. We felt im- 
mensely relieved. It seemed, in a manner, easy. 
There was not a man in the party but believed that 
with a little practice he could stand in a row, especi- 
ally if there were others along; there was not a man 



122 The Innocents Abroad 

but believed he could bow without tripping on his 
coat-tail and breaking his neck; in a word, we came 
to believe we were equal to any item in the perform- 
ance except that complicated smile* The consul 
also said we ought to draft a little address to the 
Emperor, and present it to one of his aids-de- 
camp, who would forward it to him at the proper 
time Therefore, five gentlemen were appointed to 
prepare the document, and the fifty others went 
sadly smiling about the ship — practicing. During 
the next twelve hours we had the general appear- 
ance, somehow, of being at a funeral, where every- 
body was sorry the death had occurred, but glad it 
was over — where everybody was smiling, and yet 
broken-hearted^ 

A committee went ashore to wait on his Excel* 
lency, the Governor-General, and learn our fate. 
At the end of three hours of boding suspense, they 
came back and said the Emperor would receive us 
at noon the next day — would send carriages for 
us — would hear the address in person. The Grand 
Duke Michael had sent to invite us to his palace 
also. Any man could see that there was an inten- 
tion here to show that Russia's friendship for 
America was so genuine as to render even her 
private citizens objects worthy of kindly attentions. 

At the appointed hour we drove out three miles, 
and assembled in the handsome garden in front of 
the Emperor's palace. 

We formed a circle under the trees before the 



Tlie Innocents Abroad 123 

door, for there was no one room in the house able to 
accommodate our threescore persons comfortably, 
and in a few minutes the imperial family came out 
bowing and smiling, and stood in our midst A 
number of great dignitaries of the empire, in un- 
dress uniforms, came with them With every bow^ 
His Majesty said a word of welcome, I copy these 
speeches. There is character in them — Russian 
character — which is politeness itself, and the gen- 
uine article. The French are polite, but it is often 
mere ceremonious politeness. A Russian imbues 
his polite things with a heartiness, both of phrase 
and expression, that compels belief in their sincerity - 
As I was saying, the Czar punctuated his speeches 
with bows: 

** Good morning— -I am glad to see you — I am 
gratified — I am delighted — - 1 am happy to receive 
you!'* 

All took off their hats, and the consul inflicted 
the address on him. He bore it with unflinching 
fortitude ; then took the rusty-looking document and 
handed it to some great officer or other, to be filed 
away among the archives of Russia — in the stove. 
He thanked us for the address, and said he was very 
much pleased to see us, especially as such friendly 
relations existed between Russia and the United 
States. The Empress said the Americans were 
favorites in Russia, and she hoped the Russians were 
similarly regarded in America. These were all the 
speeches that were made, and I recommend them to 



S24 The Innocents Abroad 

parties who present policemen with gold watches, as 
models of brevity and point. After this the Em- 
press went and talked sociably (for an Empress) 
with various ladies around the circle ; several gentle- 
men entered into a disjointed general conversation 
with the Emperor; the Dukes and Princes, Admirals 
and Maids of Honor dropped into free-and-easy 
chat with first one and then another of our party, 
and whoever chose stepped forward and spoke with 
the modest little Grand Duchess Marie, the Czar's 
daughter. She is fourteen years old, light-haired, 
blue-eyed > unassuming, and pretty. Everybody talks 
English,. 

The Emperor wore a cap, frock-coat, and panta- 
loons, all of some kind of plain white drilling — 
cotton or linen — and sported no jewelry or any 
msignia whatever of rank. No costume could be 
iess ostentatious. He is very tall and spare, and a 
determined-looking man, though a very pleasant- 
looking one, nevertheless. It is easy to see that he 
iS kind and affectionate. There is something very 
noble in his expression when his cap is off. There 
»s none of that cunning in his eye that all of us 
noticed in Louis Napoleon's, 

The Empress and the little Grand Duchess wore 
simple suits of foulard (or foulard silk, I don't know 
which is proper) , with a small blue spot in it ; the 
dresses were trimmed with blue ; both ladies wore 
broad blue sashes about their waists ; linen collars 
and clerical ties of muslin; low-crowned straw-hats 



The innocents Alroad il25 

trimmed with blue velvet; parasols and flesh-colored 
gloves. The Grand Duchess had no heels on her 
shoes- I do not know this of my own knowledge - 
but one of our ladies told me so. I was not looking 
at her shoes „ I was glad to observe that she wore 
her own hair, plaited in thick braids against the back 
of her head, instead of the uncomely thing they call 
a waterfall, which is about as much like a waterfall 
as a canvas-covered ham is like a cataract. Taking 
the kind expression that is in the Emperor's face 
and the gentleness that is in his young daughter's 
into consideration, I wondered if it would not tax 
the Gzar's firmness to the utmost to condemn a sup- 
plicating wretch to misery in the wastes of Siberia 
if she pleaded for himc Every time their eyes met, 
I saw more and more what a tremendous power that 
weak, diffident schoolgirl could wield if she chose 
to do it. Many and many a time she might rule the 
Autocrat of Russia, whose lightest word is law to 
seventy millions of human beings ! She was only a 
girl, and she looked like a thousand others I have 
seen, but never a girl provoked such a novel and 
peculiar interest in me beforeo A strange, new 
sensation is a rare thing in this humdrum Hfe, and 
1 had it here. There was nothing stale or worn out 
about the thoughts and feelings the situation and 
the circumstances created. It seemed strange — = 
stranger than I can tell — to think that the central 
figure in the cluster of men and women, chatting 
here under the trees Hke the most ordinary individua) 



126 The innocents Abroad 

in the land, was a man who could open his lips and 
ships would fly through the waves, locomotives 
would speed over the plains, couriers would hurry 
from village to village, a hundred telegraphs would 
flash the word to the four corners of an empire that 
stretches its vast proportions over a seventh part of 
the habitable globe, and a countless multitude of 
men would spring to do his bidding. I had a sort 
of vague desire to examine his hands and see if they 
were of flesh and blood, like other men's. Here 
was a man who could do this wonderful thing, and 
yet if I chose I could knock him down. The case 
was plain, but it seemed preposterous, nevertheless 
= — as preposterous as trying to knock down a moun- 
tain or wipe out a continent. If this man sprained 
his ankle, a million miles of telegraph would carry 
the news over mountains — valleys — uninhabited 
deserts — under the trackless sea — and ten thou- 
sand newspapers would prate of it; if he were 
grievously ill, all the nations would know it before 
the sun rose again ; if he dropped lifeless where he 
stood, his fall might shake the thrones of half a 
world ! If I could have stolen his coat, I would 
have done it. When I meet a man like that, I want 
something to remember him by. 

As a general thing, we have been shown through 
palaces by some plush-legged, filigreed flunkey or 
other, who charged a franc for it ; but after talking 
with the company half an hour, the Emperor of 
Russia and his family conducted us all through their 



The Innocents Abroad 12f 

mansion themselves. They made no charge. They 
seemed to take a real pleasure in it. 

We spent half an hour idling through the palacej, 
admiring the cosy apartments and the rich but emi- 
nently home-like appointments of the place, and 
then the imperial family bade our party a kind good- 
bye, and proceeded to count the spoons. 

An invitation was extended to us to visit the 
palace of the eldest son, the Crown Prince of 
Russia, which was near at hand. The young man 
was absent, but the Dukes and Countesses and 
Princes went over the premises with us as leisurely 
as was the case at the Emperor* s, and conversation 
continued as lively as ever. 

It was a little after one o'clock noWc We drove 
to the Grand Duke MichaeFs, a mile away, in re- 
sponse to his invitation, previously given. 

We arrived in twenty minutes from the Em- 
peror's, It is a lovely place. The beautiful palace 
nestles among the grand old groves of the park, the 
park sits in the lap of the picturesque crags and 
hills, and both look out upon the breezy ocean. In 
the park are rustic seats, here and there, in secluded 
nooks that are dark with shade ; there are rivulets of 
crystal water; there are lakelets, with inviting, 
grassy banks ; there are glimpses of sparkling cas- 
cades through openings in the wilderness of foliage ; 
there are streams of clear water gushing from mimic 
knots on the trunks of forest trees; there are 
miniature marble temples perched upon gray old 



128 The Innocents Abroad 

crags ; there are airy lookouts whence one may gaze 
upon a broad expanse of landscape and ocean. 
The palace is modeled after the choicest forms of 
Grecian architecture, and its wide colonnades sur- 
round a central court that is banked with rare 
flowers that fill the place with their fragrance, and in 
their midst springs a fountain that cools the summer 
air, and may possibly breed mosquitoes, but I do 
not think it does. 

The Grand Duke and his Duchess came out, and 
the presentation ceremonies were as simple as they 
had been at the Emperor's. In a few minutes, 
conversation was under way, as before. The Emi- 
press appeared in the veranda, and the little Grand 
Duchess came out into the crowd. They had beaten 
us there. In a few minutes, the Emperor came 
himself on horseback. It was very pleasant. You 
can appreciate it if you have ever visited royalty 
and felt occasionally that possibly you might be 
wearing out your welcome — though as a general 
thing, I believe, royalty Is not scrupulous about 
discharging you when it is done with you. 

The Grand Duke is the third brother of the Em- 
peror, is about thirty-seven years old, perhaps, and 
is the princeliest figure in Russia. He Is even taller 
than the Czar, as straight as an Indian, and bears 
himself like one of those gorgeous knights we read 
about in romances of the Crusades. He looks like 
a great-hearted fellov/ who would pitch an enemy 
into the river in a moment, and then jump in and 



The Innocents Abroad 129 

risk his life fishing him out again. The stones they 
tell of him show him to be of a brave and generous 
nature. He must have been desirous of proving 
that Americans were welcome guests in the imperial 
palaces of Russia, because he rode all the way tc 
Yalta and escorted our procession to the Emperor's 
himself, and kept his aids scurrying about, clearing 
the road and offering assistance wherever it could be 
needed. We were rather familiar with him then, 
because we did not know who he was. We recog- 
nized him now, and appreciated the friendly spirit 
that prompted him to do us a favor that any other 
Grand Duke in the world would have doubtless de- 
clined to do. He had plenty of servitors whom he 
could have sent, but he chose to attend to the matter 
himself. 

The Grand Duke was dressed in the handsome and 
showy uniform of a Cossack officer. The Grand 
Duchess had on a white alpaca robe, with the seams 
and gores trimmed with black barb lace, and a little 
gray hat with a feather of the same color. She is 
young, rather pretty, modest and unpretencKng, and 
full of winning politeness. 

Our party walked all through the house, and then 
the nobility escorted them all over the grounds, and 
finally brought them back to the palace about half- 
past two o'clock to breakfast. They called it break- 
fast, but we would have called it luncheon. It con- 
sisted of two kinds of wine; tea, bread, cheese, and 
cold meats, and was served on the center-tables m 



130 The Innocents Abroad 

the reception-room and the verandas — anywhere 
that was convenient; there was no ceremony. It 
was a sort of picnic, I had heard before that we 
were to breakfast there, but Blucher said he believed 
Baker's boy had suggested it to his Imperial High- 
ness. I think not — though it would be Hke him. 
Baker's boy is the famine-breeder of the ship. He 
is always hungry. They say he goes about the 
staterooms when the passengers are out, and eats up 
all the soap. And they say he eats oakum. They 
say he will eat anything he can get between meals, 
but he prefers oakum. He does not like oakum for 
dinner, but he likes it for a lunch, at odd hours, or 
anything that way. It makes him very disagreeable, 
because it makes his breath bad, and keeps his teeth 
all stuck up with tar. Baker's boy may have sug- 
gested the breakfast, but I hope he did not. It 
went off well, anyhow. The illustrious host moved 
about from place to place, and helped to destroy the 
provisions and keep the conversation lively, and the 
Grand Duchess talked with the veranda parties and 
such as had satisfied their appetites and straggled 
out from the reception-room. 

The Grand Duke's tea was delicious. They give 
one a lemon to squeeze into it, or iced milk, if he 
prefers it. The former is best. This tea is brought 
overland from China. It injures the article to 
transport it by sea. 

When it was time to go, we bade our distinguished 
hosts good-byey and they retired happy and 



The Innocents Abroad i)t 

contented to their apartments to count their 
spoons. 

We had spent the best part of half a day in the 
home of royalty, and had been as cheerful and com- 
fortable all the time as we could have been in the 
ship. I would as soon have thought of being cheer- 
ful in Abraham's bosom as in the palace of an 
Emperor. I supposed that Emperors were terrible 
people. I thought they never did anything but wear 
magnificent crowns and red velvet dressing-gowns 
with dabs of wool sewed on them in spots, and sit 
on thrones and scowl at the flunkies and the people 
in the parquette, and order Dukes and Duchesses 
off to execution. I find, however, that when one is 
so fortunate as to get behind the scenes and see them 
at home and in the privacy of their firesides, they 
are strangely like common mortals. They are 
pleasanter to look upon then than they are in their 
theatrical aspect. It seems to come as natural to 
them to dress and act like other people as it is to 
put a friend's cedar pencil in your pocket when you 
are done using it. But I can never have any con- 
fidence in the tinsel kings of the theater after this. 
It will be a great loss. I used to take such a thrill- 
ing pleasure in them. But, hereafter, I will turn 
me sadly away and say: 

"This does not answer — this isn't the style ot 
king that / am acquainted with.'* 

When they swagger around the stage in jeweled 
crowns and splendid robes, I shall feel bound to ob- 



132 The Innocents Abroad 

serve that all the Emperors that ever / was personally 
acquainted with wore the commonest sort of clothes, 
and did not swagger. And when they come on the 
stage attended by a vast body-guard of supes in hel- 
mets and tin breastplates, it will be my duty as well 
as my pleasure to inform the ignorant that no 
crowned head of my acquaintance has a soldier any- 
where about his house or his person. 

Possrbly it may be thought that our party tarried 
too long, or did other improper things, but such was 
not the case. The company felt that they were oc- 
cupying an unusually responsible position — they 
were representing the people of America, not the 
government — and therefore diey were careful to do 
their best to perform their high mission with 
credit. 

On the other hand, the Imperial families, no 
doubt, considered that in entertaining us they were 
more especially entertaining the people of America 
than they could by showering attentions on a whole 
platoon of ministers plenipotentiary; and therefore 
they gave to the event its fullest significance, as an 
expression of good will and friendly feeling toward 
the entire country. We took the kindnesses we re- 
ceived as attentions thus directed, of course, and not 
to ourselves as a party. That we felt a personal 
pride in being received as the representatives of a 
nation, we do not deny; that we felt a national pride 
in the warm cordiality of that reception, cannot be 
doubted. 



The Innocents Abroad I33 

Our poet has been rigidly suppressed, from the 
time we let go the anchor. When it was announced 
that we were going to visit the Emperor of Russia, 
the fountains of his great deep were broken up, and 
he rained ineffable bosh for four-and-twenty hours. 
Our original anxiety as to what we were going to 
do with ourselves, was suddenly transformed into 
anxiety about what we were going to do with our 
poet. The problem was solved at last. Two alterna- 
tives were offered him — he must either swear a 
dreadful oath that he would not issue a line of his 
poetry while he was in the Czar's dominions, or else 
remain under guard on board the ship until we were 
safe at Constantinople again. He fought the 
dilemma long, but yielded at last. It was a great 
deliverance. Perhaps the savage reader would like 
a specimen of his style. I do not mean this term to 
be offensive. I only use it because **the gentle 
reader'* has been used so often that any change 
from it cannot but be refreshing: 

'* Save us and sanctify us, and finally, then. 
See good provisions we enjoy while we journey to 

JerassJem. 
For so man proposes, which it is most true, 
And time will wait for none, nor for us too,*' 

The sea has been unusually rough all day. How- 
ever, we have had a lively time of it> anyhow. We 
have had quite a run of visitors. The Governor- 
General came, and we received him with a salute of 
nine guns.. He brought his family with him^ I 



134 The Innocents Abroad 

observed that carpets were spread from the pier-head 
to his carriage for him to walk on, though I have seen 
him walk there without any carpet when he was not 
on business. I thought may be he had what the 
accidental insurance people might call an extra-haz- 
ardous polish (** policy" — joke, but not above 
mediocrity) on his boots, and wished to protect 
them, but I examined and could not see that they 
were blacked any better than usual. It may have 
been that he had forgotten his carpet before, but he 
did not have it with him, anyhow. He was an ex- 
ceedingly pleasant old gentleman ; we all liked him , 
especially Blucher. When he went away, Blucher 
invited him to come again and fetch his carpet 
along. 

Prince Dolgorouki and a Grand Admiral or two, 
whom we had seen yesterday at the reception, came 
on board also. I was a little distant with these 
parties, at first, because when I have been visiting 
Emperors I do not like to be too familiar with people 
I only know by reputation, and whose moral charac- 
ters and standing in society I cannot be thoroughly 
acquainted with. I judged it best to be a little 
offish, at first. I said to myself. Princes and Counts 
and Grand Admirals are very well, but they are not 
Emperors, and one cannot be too particular about 
whom he associates with. 

Baron Wrangel came, also. He used to be a Rus- 
sian Ambassador at Washington. I told him I had 
an uncle who fell down a shaft and broke himself in 



The Innocents Abroad 135 

two, as much as a year before that. That was a 
falsehood, but then I was not going to let any man 
eclipse me on surprising adventures, merely for the 
want of a little invention. The Baron is a fine man, 
and is said to stand high in the Emperor's confidence 
and esteem. 

Baron Ungern-Sternberg, a boisterous, whole- 
souled old nobleman, came with the rest. He is 
a man of progress and enterprise — a representative 
man of the age. He is the Chief Director of the 
railway system of Russia — a sort of railroad king. 
In his line he is making things move along in this 
country. He has traveled extensively in America.. 
He says hq has tried convict labor on his railroads, 
and with perfect success. He says the convicts work 
well, and are quiet and peaceable. He observed 
that he employs nearly ten thousand of them now. 
This appeared to be another call on my resources. 
I was equal to the emergency. I said we had eighty 
thousand convicts employed on the railways in 
America — all of them under sentence of death for 
murder in the first degree. That closed him out. 
We had General Todleben (the famous defender of 
Sebastopol, during the siege), and many inferior 
army and also navy officers, and a number of un- 
official Russian ladies and gentlemen. Naturally, a 
champagne luncheon was in order, and was accom* 
plished without loss of life. Toasts and jokes were 
discharged freely, but no speeches were made save 
one thanking the Emperor and the Grand Duke^ 



1^6 The Innocents Abroad 

through the Governor-General, for our hospitable 
reception, and one by the Governor-General in reply, 
in which he returned the Emperor's thanks for 
the speech, etc. 



J 



CHAPTER XI. 

WE returned to Constantinople, and after a day oi 
two spent in exhausting marches about the city 
and voyages up the Golden Horn in caiques^ we 
steamed away again. We passed through the Sea of 
Marmora and the Dardanelles, and steered for a new 
land — a new one to us, at least — Asia. We had 
as yet only acquired a bowing acquaintance with it, 
through pleasure excursions to Scutari and the 
regions round about. 

We passed between Lemnos and Mytilene, and 
saw them as we had seen Elba and the Balearic Isles 
— mere bulky shapes, with the softening mists of 
distance upon them — whales in a fog, as it were„ 
Then we held our course southward, and began to 
** read up " celebrated Smyrna. 

At all hours of the day and night the sailors in the 
forecastle amused themselves and aggravated us by 
burlesquing our visit to royalty^ The opening para- 
graph of our Address to the Emperor was framed as 
follows : 

** We are a handful of private citizens of America, 
traveling simply for recreation — and unostenta- 



138 The Innocents Abroad 

tiously, as becomes our unofficial state — and, there- 
fore, we have no excuse to tender for presenting 
ourselves before Your Majesty, save the desire of 
offering our grateful acknowledgments to the lord of 
a realm, which, through good and through evil re- 
port, has been the steadfast friend of the land we 
love so well." 

The third cook, crowned with a resplendent tin 
basin and wrapped royally in a tablecloth mottled 
with grease-spots and coffee-stains, and bearing a 
scepter that looked strangely like a belaying pin, 
walked upon a dilapidated carpet and perched himself 
on the capstan, careless of the flying spray; his 
tarred and weather-beaten Chamberlains, Dukes, and 
Lord High Admirals surrounded him, arrayed in all 
the pomp that spare tarpaulins and remnants of old 
sails could furnish. Then the visiting ** watch be- 
low/* transformed into graceless ladies and uncouth 
pilgrims, by rude travesties upon waterfalls, hoop- 
skirts, white kid gloves, and swallow-tail coats, moved 
solemnly up the companion-way, and bowing low, 
began a system of complicated and extraordinary 
smiling which few monarchs could look upon and 
live. Then the mock consul, a slush-plastered deck- 
sweep, drew out a soiled fragment of paper and pro- 
ceeded to read, laboriously: 

** To His Imperial Majesty, Alexander II., Em- 
peror of Russia : 

** We are a handful of private citizens of America, 
traveling simply for recreation — and unostenta- 



The Innocents Abroad 139 

tiously , as becomes our unofficial state — and there- 
fore, we have no excuse to tender for presenting 
ourselves before your Majesty — ** 

The Emperor — **Then what the devil did you 
come for ? ' * 

— '* Save the desire of offering our grateful ac- 
knowledgments to the lord of a realm which — * * 

The Emperor — ** Oh, d — n the Address ! — read 
it to the police. Chamberlain, take these people 
over to my brother, the Grand Duke's, and give 
them a square meal. Adieu! I am happy — I am 
gratified — I am delighted — I am bored. Adieu, 
adieu — vamose the ranch ! The First Groom of the 
Palace will proceed to count the portable articles of 
value belonging to the premises." 

The farce then closed, to be repeated again with 
every change of the watches, and embellished with 
new and still more extravagant inventions of pomp 
and conversation. 

At all times of the day and night the phraseology 
of that tiresome address fell upon our ears. Grimy 
sailors came down out of the foretop placidly an* 
nouncing themselves as ** a handful of private citi- 
zens of America, traveling simply for recreation and 
unostentatiously," etc.; the coal-passers moved to 
their duties in the profound depths of the ship, ex- 
plaining the blackness of their faces and their un- 
couthness of dress, with the reminder that they were 
*' a handful of private citizens, traveling simply for 
recreation," etc., and when the cry rang through 



140 The innocents Abroad 

the vessel at midnight: ** Eight BELLS ! — LAR- 
BOARD WATCH, TURN OUT!*' the larboard watch 
came gaping and stretching out of their den, with the 
everlasting formula: *'Aye, aye, sir! We are a 
handful of private citizens of America, traveling 
simply for recreation, and unostentatiously, as be- 
comes our unofficial state! ** 

As I was a member of the committee, and helped 
to frame the Address, these sarcasms came home to 
me. I never heard a sailor proclaiming himself as a 
handful of American citizens traveling for recreation, 
but I wished he might trip and fall overboard, and 
so reduce his handful by one individual, at least. I 
never was so tired of any one phrase as the sailors 
made me of the opening sentence of the Address to 
the Emperor of Russia. 

This seaport of Smyrna, our first notable acquaint- 
ance in Asia, is a closely-packed city of one hundred 
and thirty thousand inhabitants, and, like Constan- 
tinople, it has no outskirts. It is as closely packed at 
its outer edges as it is in the center, and then the 
habitations leave suddenly off and the plain beyond 
seems houseless. It is just Hke any other Oriental 
city. That is to say, its Moslem houses are heavy 
and dark, and as comfortless as so many tombs ; its 
streets are crooked, rudely and roughly paved, and 
as narrow as an ordinary staircase ; the streets uni- 
formly carry a man to any other place than the one 
he wants to go to, and surprise him by landing him 
in the most unexpected localities ; business is chiefly 



The innocents Abroad 141 

carried on in great covered bazaars, celled like a 
honeycomb with innumerable shops no larger than 
a common closet, and the whole hive cut up into a 
maze of alleys about wide enough to accommodate 
a laden camel, and well calculated to confuse a 
stranger and eventually lose him ; everywhere there 
is dirt, everywhere there are fleas, everywhere there 
are lean, broken-hearted dogs; every alley is 
thronged with people; wherever you look, your 
eye rests upon a wild masquerade of extravagant 
costumes ; the workshops are all open to the streets, 
and the workmen visible ; all manner of sounds assail 
the ear, and over them all rings out the muezzin's cry 
from some tall minaret, calling the faithful vaga- 
bonds to prayer ; and superior to the call to prayer, 
the noises in the streets, the interest of the costumes 
— ■ superior to everything, and claiming the bulk of 
attention first, last, and all the time — is a combina- 
tion of Mohammedan stenches, to which the smell of 
even a Chinese quarter would be as pleasant as the 
roasting odors of the fatted calf to the nostrils of the 
returning Prodigal. Such is Oriental luxury — such 
is Oriental splendor ! We read about it all our days, 
but we comprehend it not until we see it. Smyrna 
is a very old city. Its name occurs several times in 
the Bible, one or two of the disciples of Christ visited 
it, and here was located one of the original seven 
apocalyptic churches spoken of in Revelations. 
These churches were symbolized in the Scriptures as 
candlesticks, and on certain conditions there was a 



142 The Innocents Abroad 

sort of implied promise that Smyrna should be en- 
dowed with a ** crown of life." She was to **be 
faithful unto death" — those were the terms. She 
has not kept up her faith straight along, but the pil- 
grims that wander hither consider that she has come 
near enough to it to save her, and so they point to 
the fact that Smyrna to-day wears her crown of life, 
and is a great city, with a great commerce and full 
of energy, while the cities wherein were located the 
other six churches, and to which no crown of life 
was promised, have vanished from the earth. So 
Smyrna really still possesses her crown of life, in 
a business point of view. Her career, for eighteen 
centuries, has been a chequered one, and she has 
been under the rule of princes of many creeds, yet 
there has been no season during all that time, as far 
as we know (and during such seasons as she was in- 
habited at all) , that she has been without her little 
community of Christians *' faithful unto death." 
Hers was the only church against which no threats 
were implied in the Revelation, and the only one 
which survived. 

With Ephesus, forty miles from here, where was 
located another of the seven churches, the case was 
different. The** candlestick" has been removed 
from Ephesus. Her light has been put out. Pil- 
grims, always prone to find prophecies in the Bible, 
and often where none exist, speak cheerfully and 
complacently of poor, ruined Ephesus as the victim 
of prophecy. And yet there is no sentence that 



The Innocents Abroad 143 

promises, without due qualification, the destruction 
of the city. The words are : 

•* Remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent, 
and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will 
remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.'* 

That is all ; the other verses are singularly compli- 
mentary to Ephesus. The threat is qualified. There 
is no history to show that she did not repent. But 
the cruelest habit the modern prophecy-savans have, 
is that one of coolly and arbitrarily fitting the 
prophetic shirt on to the wrong man. They do it 
without regard to rhyme or reason. Both the cases 
I have just mentioned are instances in point. Those 
** prophecies '* are distinctly leveled at the ** churches 
of Ephesus, Smyrna,** etc., and yet the pilgrims 
invariably make them refer to the cities instead. No 
crown of life is promised to the town of Smyrna and 
its commerce, but to the handful of Christians who 
formed its ** church.** If they ^^xq ** faithful unto 
death,** they have their crown now — but no amount 
of faithfulness and legal shrewdness combined could 
legitimately drag the city into a participation in the 
promises of the prophecy. The stately language of 
the Bible refers to a crown of life whose luster will 
reflect the day-beams of the endless ages of eternity, 
not the butterfly existence of a city built by men's 
hands, which must pass to dust with the builders 
and be forgotten even in the mere handful of cen- 
turies vouchsafed to the solid world itself between 
its cradle and its grave. 



144 The Innocents Abroad 

The fashion of delving out fulfillments of prophecy 
where that prophecy consists of mere ** ifs," 
trenches upon the absurd. Suppose, a thousand 
years from now, a malarious swamp builds itself up in 
the shallow harbor of Smyrna, or something else kills 
the town ; and suppose, also, that within that time the 
swamp that has filled the renowned harbor of Ephe- 
sus and rendered her ancient site deadly and unin- 
habitable to-day, becomes hard and healthy ground ; 
suppose the natural consequence ensues, to wit: that 
Smyrna becomes a melancholy ruin, and Ephesus is 
rebuilt. What would the prophecy savans say? 
They would coolly skip over our age of the world, and 
say ; ** Smyrna was not faithful unto death, and so her 
crown of life was denied her; Ephesus repented, and 
lo ! her candlestick was not removed. Behold these 
evidences ! How wonderful is prophecy !'* 

Smyrna has been utterly destroyed six times. If 
her crown of life had been an insurance policy, she 
would have had an opportunity to collect on it the 
first time she fell. But she holds it on sufferance 
and by a complimentary construction of language 
which does not refer to her. Six different times, 
however, I suppose some infatuated prophecy- 
enthusiast blundered along and said, to the infinite 
disgust of Smyrna and the Smyrniotes : " In sooth, 
here is astounding fulfillment of prophecy ! Smyrna 
hath not been faithful unto death, and behold her 
crown of life Is vanished from her head. Verily, 
these things be astonishing!" 



The Innocents Abroad 145 

Such things have a bad influence. They provoke 
worldly men into using light conversation concerning 
sacred subjects. Thick-headed commentators upon 
the Bible, and stupid preachers and teachers, work 
more damage to religion than sensible, cool-brained 
clergymen can fight away again, toil as they mayc 
It is not good judgment to fit a crown of life upon a 
city which has been destroyed six timeSc That other 
class of wiseacres who twist prophecy in such a 
manner as to make it promise the destruction and 
desolation of the same city, use judgment just as 
bad, since the city is in a very flourishing condition 
now, unhappily for them. These things put 
arguments into the mouth of infidelity. 

A portion of the city is pretty exclusively Turk- 
ish; the Jews have a quarter to themselves; the 
Franks another quarter; so, also, with the Armeni- 
ans. The Armenians, of course, are Christians. 
Their houses are large, clean, airy, handsomely 
paved with black and white squares of marble, and 
in the center of many of them is a square courts 
which has in it a luxuriant flower-garden and a 
sparkling fountain ; the doors of all the rooms open 
on this. A very wide hall leads to the street door^ 
and in this the women sit, the most of the day. In 
the cool of the evening they dress up in their best 
raiment and show themselves at the door. They are 
all comely of countenance, and exceedingly neat and 
cleanly ; they look as if they were just out of a band« 
box. Some of the young ladies — many of themj, I 
10»» 



146 The Innocents Abroad 

may say — are even very beautiful ; they average a 
shade better than American girls — which treasonable 
words I pray may be forgiven me. They are very 
sociable, and will smile back when a stranger smiles 
at them, bow back when he bows, and talk back if 
he speaks to them. No introduction is required. 
An hour*s chat at the door with a pretty girl one 
never saw before, is easily obtained, and is very 
pleasant. I have tried it. I could not talk anything 
but English, and the girl knew nothing but Greek, 
or Armenian, or some such barbarous tongue, but 
we got along very well. . I find that in cases like 
these, the fact that you cannot comprehend each 
other isn't much of a drawback. In that Russian 
town of Yalta I danced an astonishing sort of dance 
an hour long, and one I had not heard of before, 
with a very pretty girl, and we talked incessantly, 
and laughed exhaustingly, and neither one ever 
knew what the other was driving at. But it was 
splendid „ There were twenty people in the set, and 
the dance was very lively and complicated. It was 
complicated enough without me — with me it was 
more so. I threw in a figure now and then that 
surprised those Russians. But I have never ceased 
to think of that girl. I have written to her, but I 
cannot direct the epistle because her name is one of 
those nine-jointed Russian affairs, and there are not 
letters enough in our alphabet to hold out. I am 
not reckless enough to try to pronounce it when I 
am awake, but I make a stagger at it in my dreams, 



The Innocents Abroad W 

and get up with the lockjaw in the morning, I am 
fading. I do not take my meals now, with any sort 
of regularity. Her dear name haunts me still in my 
dreams. It is awful on teeth. It never comes out 
of my mouth but it fetches an old snag along with 
it. And then the lockjaw closes down and nips off 
a couple of the last syllables — but they taste 
good. 

Coming through the Dardanelles, we saw camel 
trains on shore with the glasses, but we were never 
close to one till we got to Smyrna. These camels 
are very much larger than the scrawny specimens 
one sees in the menagerie. They stride along these 
streets, in single file, a dozen in a train, with heavy 
loads on their backs, and a fancy-looking negro in 
Turkish costume, or an Arab, preceding them on a 
little donkey and completely overshadowed and 
rendered insignificant by the huge beasts. To see a 
camel train laden with the spices of Arabia and the 
rare fabrics of Persia come marching through the 
narrow alleys of the bazaar, among porters with 
their burdens, money-changers, lamp-merchants, 
Alnaschars in the glassware business, portly cross- 
legged Turks smoking the famous narghili, and the 
crowds drifting to and fro in the fanciful costumes 
of the East, is a genuine revelation of the Orient. 
The picture lacks nothing. It casts you back at 
once into your forgotten boyhood, and again you 
dream over the wonders of the Arabian Nights; 
again your companions are princes, your lord is the 



148 The Innocents Abroad 

Caliph Haroun Al Raschid, and your servants are 
terrific giants and genii that come with smoke and 
lightning and thunder, and go as a storm goes when 
they depart I 



CHAPTER XII. 

WE inquired, and learned that the lions of 
Smyrna consisted of the ruins of the ancient 
citadel, whose broken and prodigious battlements 
frown upon the city from a lofty hill just in the edge 
of the town — the Mount Pagus of Scripture, they 
call it; the site of that one of the seven apocalyptic 
churches of Asia which was located here in the first 
century of the Christian era; and the grave and the 
place of martyrdom of the venerable Polycarp, who 
suffered in Smyrna for his religion some eighteen 
hundred years ago. 

We took little donkeys and started. We saw 
Polycarp 's tomb, and then hurried on. 

The "Seven Churches" — thus they abbreviate 
it — came next on the list. We rode there — about 
a mile and a half in the sweltering sun — and visited 
a little Greek church which they said was built upon 
the ancient site ; and we paid a small fee, and the 
holy attendant gave each of us a httle wax candle as 
a remembrancer of the place, and I put mine in my 
hat and the sun melted it and the grease all ran 
down the back of my neck; and so now I have not 

<U9> 



150 The Innocents Abroad 

anything left but the wick, and It is a sorry and 
wilted-looking wick at that. 

Several of us argued as well as we could that the 
'* church " mentioned in the Bible meant a party of 
Christians, and not a building; that the Bible spoke 
of them as being very poor — so poor, I thought, 
and so subject to persecution (as per Polycarp's 
martyrdom) that in the first place they probably 
could not have afforded a church edifice, and in the 
second would not have dared to build it in the open 
light of day if they could ; and finally, that if they 
had had the privilege of building it, common judg- 
ment would have suggested that they build it some- 
where near the town. But the elders of the ship's 
family ruled us down and scouted our evidences. 
However, retribution came to them afterward. They 
found that they had been led astray and had gone to 
the wrong place ; they discovered that the accepted 
site is in the city. 

Riding through the town, we could see marks of 
the six Smyrnas that have existed here and been 
burned up by fire or knocked down by earthquakes. 
The hills and the rocks are rent asunder in places, 
excavations expose great blocks of building-stone 
that have lain buried for ages, and all the mean 
houses and walls of modern Smyrna along the way 
are spotted white with broken pillars, capitals, and 
fragments of sculptured marble that once adorned 
the lordly palaces that were the glory of the city in 
the olden timCo 



The Innocents Abroad 151 

The ascent of the hill of the citadel is very steep, 
and we proceeded rather slowly. But there were 
matters of interest about us. In one place, five 
hundred feet above the sea, the perpendicular bank 
on the upper side of the road was ten or fifteen feet 
high, and the cut exposed three veins of oyster- 
shells, just as we have seen quartz veins exposed in 
the cutting of a road in Nevada or Montana. The 
veins were about eighteen inches thick and two or 
three feet apart, and they slanted along downward 
for a distance of thirty feet or more, and then dis- 
appeared where the cut joined the road. Heaven 
only knows how far a man might trace them by 
** stripping." They were clean, nice oyster-shells, 
large, and just like any other oyster-shells. They 
were thickly massed together, and none were scat- 
tered above or below the veins. Each one was a 
well-defined lead by itself, and without a spur. My 
first instinct was to set up the usual — - 

NOTICE: 

*' We, the undersigned, claim five claims of two hundred feet each 
(and one for discovery) on this ledge or lode of oyster-shells, with all its 
dips, spurs, angles, variations, and sinuosities, and fifty feet on each side 
of the same, to work it, etc., etc., according to the mining laws of 
Smyrna." 

They were such perfectly natural-looking leads 
that I could hardly keep from ** taking them up." 
Among the oyster-shells were mixed many fragments 
of ancient, broken crockery ware. Now how did 
those masses of oyster-shells get there? I cannot 



152 The Innocents Abroad 

determine. Broken crockery and oyster-shells are 
suggestive of restaurants — but then they could have 
had no such places away up there on that mountain- 
side in our time, because nobody has lived up there. 
A restaurant would not pay in such a stony, forbid- 
ding, desolate place, And besides, there were no 
champagne corks among the shells. If there ever 
was a restaurant there, it must have been in Smyrna's 
palmy days, when the hills were covered with palaces. 
I could believe in one restaurant, on those terms; 
but then how about the three? Did they have res- 
taurants there at three different periods of the 
world? — because there are two or three feet of 
solid earth between the oyster leads. Evidently, 
the restaurant solution will not answer. 

The hill might have been the bottom of the sea, 
once, and been lifted up, with its oyster-beds, by an 
earthquake — but, then, how about the crockery? 
And, moreover, how about three oyster-beds, one 
above another, and thick strata of good honest 
earth between? 

That theory will not do. It is just possible that 
this hill is Mount Ararat, and that Noah's Ark rested 
here, and he ate oysters and threw the shells over- 
board. But that will not do, either. There are the 
three layers again and the solid earth between — 
and, besides, there were only eight in Noah's family, 
and they could not have eaten all these oysters in the 
two or three months they stayed on top of that 
mountain. The beasts — however, it is simply ab- 



The Innocents Abroad 153 

surd to suppose he did not know any more than to 
feed the beasts on oyster suppers. 

It is painful — it is even humiliating — but I am 
reduced at last to one slender theory: that the 
oysters climbed up there of their own accord. But 
what object could they have had in view? — what 
did they want up there? What could any oyster 
want to climb a hill for? To climb a hill must 
necessarily be fatiguing and annoying exercise for 
an oyster. The most natural conclusion would be 
that the oysters climbed up there to look at the 
scenery. Yet when one comes to reflect upon the 
nature of an oyster, it seems plain that he does not 
care for scenery. An oyster has no taste for such 
things; he cares nothing for the beautiful. An 
oyster is of a retiring disposition, and not lively ^ — 
not even cheerful above the average, and never 
enterprising. But, above all, an oyster does not 
take any interest in scenery — he scorns it. What 
have I arrived at now? Simply at the point I started 
from, namely, those oyster shells are there , in regular 
layers, five hundred feet above the sea, and no man 
knows how they got there. I have hunted up the 
guide-books, and the gist of what they say is this ; 
** They are there, but how they got there is a mys- 
tery." 

Twenty-five years ago, a multitude of people in 
America put on their ascension robes, took a tearful 
leave of their friends, and made ready to fly up into 
heaven at the first blast of the trumpet. But the 



154 The Innocents Abroad 

angel did not blow it. Miller's resurrection day was 
a failure. The Millerites were disgusted. I did not 
suspect that there were Millers in Asia Minor, but a 
gentleman tells me that they had it all set for the 
world to come to an end in Smyrna one day about 
three years ago. There was much buzzing and 
preparation for a long time previously, and it cul- 
minated in a wild excitement at the appointed time. 
A vast number of the populace ascended the citadel 
hill early in the morning, to get out of the Way of 
the general destruction, and many of the infatuated 
closed up their shops and retired from all earthly 
business. But the strange part of it was that about 
three in the afternoon, while this gentleman and his 
friends were at dinner in the hotel, a terrific storm 
of rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning, 
broke forth and continued with dire fury for two or 
three hours. It was a thing unprecedented in 
Smyrna at that time of the year, and scared some 
of the most skeptical. The streets ran rivers and 
the hotel floor was flooded with water. The dinner 
had to be suspended. When the storm finished and 
left everybody drenched through and through, and 
melancholy and half-drowned, the ascensionists came 
down from the mountain as dry as so many charity- 
sermons ! They had been looking down upon the 
fearful storm going on below, and really believed 
that their proposed destruction of the world was 
proving a grand success. 

A railway here in Asia — in tbe dreamy realm of 



the Innocents Abroad 155 

the Orient — in the fabled land of the Arabian 
Nights — is a strange thing to think of. And yet 
they have one already, and are building another. 
The present one is well built and well conducted, by 
an English Company, but is not doing an immense 
amount of business. The first year it carried a good 
many passengers, but its freight list only comprised 
eight hundred pounds of figs ! 

It runs almost to the very gates of Ephesus — a 
town great in all ages of the world — a city familiar 
to readers of the Bible, and one which was as old as 
the very hills when the disciples of Christ preached 
in its streets. It dates back to the shadowy ages of 
tradition, and was the birthplace of gods renowned 
in Grecian mythology. The idea of a locomotive 
tearing through such a place as this, and waking the 
phantoms of its old days of romance out of their 
dreams of dead and gone centuries, is curious 
enough. 

We journey thither to-morrow to see the cele« 
brated ruins. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THIS has been a stirring day. The superinten- 
dent of the railway put a train at our disposal, 
and did us the further kindness of accompanying us 
to Ephesus and giving to us his watchful care. We 
brought sixty scarcely perceptible donkeys in the 
freight cars, for we had much ground to go over. 
We have seen some of the most grotesque costumes, 
along the line of the railroad, that can be imagined. 
I am glad that no possible combination of words 
could describe them, for I might then be foolish 
enough to attempt it. 

At ancient Ayassalook, in the midst of a forbid- 
ding desert, we came upon long lines of <*uined 
aqueducts, and other remnants of architectural 
grandeur, that told us plainly enough we were Hear- 
ing what had been a metropolis once. We left the 
train and mounted the donkeys, along with our 
invited guests — pleasant young gentlemen from the 
officers' list of an American man-of-war. 

The little donkeys had saddles upon them which 
were made very high in order that the rider's feet 
might not drag the ground. The preventative did 

(156) 



The Innocents Abroad 15f 

not work well in the cases of our tallest pilgrims, 
however. There were no bridles— nothing but a 
single rope, tied to the bit. It was purely orna- 
mental, for the donkey cared nothing for it. If he 
were drifting to starboard, you might put your helm 
down hard the other way, if it were any satisfaction 
to you to do it, but he would continue to drift to 
starboard all the same. There was only one process 
which could be depended on, and that was to get 
down and lift his rear around until his head pointed 
in the right direction, or take him under your arm 
and carry him to a part of the road which he could 
not get out of without climbing. The sun flamed 
down as hot as a furnace, and neck-scarfs, veils, and 
umbrellas seemed hardly any protection ; they served 
only to make the long procession look more than 
ever fantastic — for be it known the ladies were all 
riding astride because they could not stay on the 
shapeless saddles sidewise, the men were perspiring 
and out of temper, their feet were banging against 
the rocks, the donkeys were capering in every direc- 
tion but the right one and being belabored with 
clubs for it, and every now and then a broad um- 
brella would suddenly go down out of the cavalcade, 
announcing to all that one more pilgrim had bitten 
the dust. It was a wilder picture than those soli- 
tudes had seen for many a day. No donkeys ever 
existed that were as hard to navigate as these, I 
think, or that had so many vile, exasperating in- 
stincts. Occasionally^ we grew so tired and breath 



158 The Innocents Abroad 

less with fighting them that we had to desist, — and 
immediately the donkey would come down to a 
deliberate walk. This, with the fatigue, and the sun, 
would put a man asleep ; and as soon as the man 
was asleep, the donkey would lie down. My donkey 
shall never see his boyhood's home again. He has 
lain down once too often. He must die. 

We all stood in the vast theater of ancient 
Ephesus, — the stone-benched amphitheater, I mean 
— and had our picture taken. We looked as proper 
there as we would look anywhere, I suppose. We 
do not embellish the general desolation of a desert 
much. We add what dignity we can to a stately 
ruin with our green umbrellas and jackasses, but it 
is little. However, we mean well. 

I wish to say a brief word of the aspect of 
Ephesus. 

On a high, steep hill, toward the sea, is a gray 
ruin of ponderous blocks of marble, wherein, tradi- 
tion says, St. Paul was imprisoned eighteen centuries 
ago. From these old walls you have the finest view 
of the desolate scene where once stood Ephesus, 
the proudest city of ancient times, and whose 
Temple of Diana was so noble in design and so 
exquisite of workmanship, that it ranked high in the 
list of the Seven Wonders of the World. 

Behind you is the sea ; in front is a level green 
valley (a marsh, in fact)^ extending far away 
among the mountains j to the right of the front 
view is the old citadel of Ayassalook, op a high 



The Innocents Abroad 159 

hill; the ruined mosque of the Sultan Seh'm stands 
near it in the plain (this is built over the grave of 
St. John, and was formerly a Christian church) ; 
further toward you is the hill of Prion, around whose 
front is clustered all that remains of the ruins of 
Ephesus that still stand ; divided from it by a narrow 
valley is the long, rocky, rugged mountain of 
Coressus. The scene is a pretty one, and yet deso- 
late — for in that wide plain no man can live, and in 
it is no human habitation. But for the crumbling 
arches and monstrous piers and broken walls that 
rise from the foot of the hill of Prion, one could not 
believe that in this place once stood a city whose 
renown is older than tradition itself. It is incredible 
to reflect that things as familiar all over the world 
to-day as household words belong in the history 
and in the shadowy legends of this silent, mournful 
solitude. We speak of Apollo and of Diana — they 
were born here; of the metamorphosis of Syrinx 
into a reed — it was done here ; of the great god 
Pan — he dwelt in the caves of this hill of Coressus ; 
of the Amazons — this was their best-prized home ; 
of Bacchus and Hercules — both fought the warlike 
women here ; of the Cyclops — they laid the ponder- 
ous marble blocks of some of the ruins yonder; of 
Homer — this was one of his many birthplaces; of 
Cimon of Athens; of Alcibiades, Lysander, Agesi- 
laus — they visited here; so did Alexander the 
Great; so did Hannibal and Antiochus, Scipio, 
Lucullus, and Sylla; Brutus, Cassius, Pompey^ 



160 The Innocents Abroad 

Cicero, and Augustus; Antony was a judge in thig 
place, and left his seat in the open court, while the 
advocates were speaking, to run after Cleopatra, 
who passed the door ; from this city these two sailed 
on pleasure excursions, in galleys with silver oars 
and perfumed sails, and with companies of beautiful 
girls to serve them, and actors and musicians to 
amuse them ; in days that seem almost modern, so 
remote are they from the early history of this city, 
Paul the Apostle preached the new religion here, 
and so did John, and here it is supposed the former 
was pitted against wild beasts, for in I Corinthians, 
XV. 32 J he says: 

" If after the manner ol men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus,** 
etc, 

when many men still lived who had seen the Christ; 
here Mary Magdalen died, and here the Virgin Mary 
ended her days with John, albeit Rome has since 
judged it best to locate her grave elsewhere ; six or 
seven hundred years ago — almost yesterday, as it 
were— -troops of mail-clad Crusaders thronged the 
streets; and to come down to trifles, we speak of 
meandering streams, and find a new interest in a 
common word when we discover that the crooked 
river Meander, in yonder valley, gave it to our 
dictionary. It makes me feel as old as these dreary 
hills to look down upon these moss-hung ruins, this 
historic desolation. One may read the Scriptures 
and believe, but he cannot go and stand yonder in 
the ruined theater and in imagination people it 



The Innocents Abroad 161 

again with the vanished multitudes who mobbed 
Paul's comrades there and shouted, with one voice^ 
** Great is Diana of the Ephesians! '* The idea of 
a shout in such a solitude as this almost makes one 
shudder. 

It was a wonderful city, this Ephesus, Go where 
you will about these broad plains, you find the most 
exquisitely-sculptured marble fragments scattered 
thick among the dust and weeds; and protruding 
from the ground, or lying prone upon it, are beau- 
tiful fluted columns of porphyry and all precious 
marbles ; and at every step you find elegantly-carved 
capitals and massive bases, and polished tablets 
engraved with Greek inscriptions. It is a world of 
precious relics, a wilderness of marred and mutilated 
gems. And yet what are these things to the won< 
ders that lie buried here under the ground? At 
Constantinople, at Pisa, in the cities of Spain, are 
great mosques and cathedrals, whose grandest col- 
umns came from the temples and palaces of Ephesus, 
and yet one has only to scratch the ground here to 
match them. We shall never know what magnifi- 
cence is, until this imperial city is laid bare to the 
sun. 

The finest piece of sculpture we have yet seen 
and the one that impressed us most (for we do not 
know much about art and cannot easily work up 
ourselves into ecstasies over it), is one that lies in 
this old theater of Ephesus which St. Paul's riot 
has made so celebrated. It is only the headless 
11** 



162 The Innocents Abroad 

body of a man, clad in a coat of mail, with a 
Medusa head upon the breast-plate, but we feel 
persuaded that such dignity and such majesty were 
never thrown into a form of stone before. 

What builders they were, these men of antiquity ! 
The massive arches of some of these ruins rest upon 
piers that are fifteen feet square and built entirely of 
solid blocks of marble, some of which are as large 
as a Saratoga trunk, and some the size of a boarding- 
house sofa. They are not shells or shafts of stone 
filled inside with rubbish, but the whole pier is a 
mass of solid masonry. Vast arches, that may have 
been the gates of the city, are built in the same way. 
They have braved the storms and sieges of three 
thousand years, and have been shaken by many an 
earthquake, but still they stand. When they dig 
alongside of them, they find ranges of ponderous 
masonry that are as perfect in every detail as they 
were the day those old Cyclopean giants finished 
them. An English company is going to excavate 
Ephesus — and then ! 

And now am I reminded of — 

THE LEGEND OF THE SEVEN SLEEPERS, 

In the Mount of Prion, yonder, is the Cave of the 
Seven Sleepers. Once upon a time, about fifteen 
hundred years ago, seven young men lived near each 
other in Ephesus, who belonged to the despised sect 
of the Christians. It came to pass that the good 
King Maximilianus (1 am telling this story for nice 



The Innocents Abroad I63 

little boys and girls), it came to pass, I say, that 
the good King Maximilianus fell to persecuting the 
Christians, and as time rolled on he made it very 
warm for them. So the seven young men said one to 
the other. Let us get up and travel. And they got 
up and traveled. They tarried not to bid their 
fathers and mothers good-bye, or any friend they 
knew. They only took certain moneys which their 
parents had, and garments that belonged unto their 
friends, whereby they might remember them when 
far away; and they took also the dog Ketmehr, 
which was the property of their neighbor MalchuSg 
because the beast did run his head into a noose which 
one of the young men was carrying carelessly, and 
they had not time to release him ; and they took also 
certain chickens that seemed lonely in the neighbor- 
ing coops, and likewise some bottles of curious 
liquors that stood near the grocer's window; and 
then they departed from the city. By-and-by they 
came to a marvelous cave in the Hill of Prion and 
entered into it and feasted, and presently they 
hurried on again. But they forgot the bottles of 
curious liquors, and left them behind. They 
traveled in many lands, and had many strange 
adventures. They were virtuous young men, and 
lost no opportunity that fell in their way to make 
their livelihood. Their motto was in these words, 
namely, ** Procrastination is the thief of time/* And 
so, whenever they did come upon a man who was 
alone, they said, Behold, this person hath the where- 



164 The innocents Abroad 

withal — let us go through him And they went 
through him. At the end of five years they had 
waxed tired of travel and adventure, and longed to 
revisit their old home again and hear the voices and 
see the faces that were dear unto their youth. There- 
fore they went through such parties as fell in their 
way where they sojourned at that time, and journeyed 
back toward Ephesus again. For the good King 
Maximilianus was become converted unto the new 
faith, and the Christians rejoiced because they were 
no longer persecuted. One day as the sun went 
down, they came to the cave in the Mount of Prion, 
and they said, each to his fellow. Let us sleep here, 
and go and feast and make merry with our friends 
when the morning cometh. And each of the seven 
iiifted up his voice and said. It is 'a whiz. So they 
went in, and lo, where they had put them, there 
lay the bottles of strange liquors, and they judged 
that age had not impaired their excellence. Wherein 
the wanderers were right, and the heads of the same 
were level. So each of the young men drank six 
bottles, and behold they felt very tired, then, and 
lay down and slept soundly. 

When they awoke, one of them, Johannes — sur- 
named Smithianus — said. We are naked. And it 
was so. Their raiment was all gone, and the money 
which they had gotten from a stranger whom they 
had proceeded through as they approached the city, 
was lying upon the ground, corroded and rusted and 
defaced., Likewise the dog Ketmehr was gone, and 



The mnocents Aoroad 165 

nothing save the brass that was upon his collar re- 
mained. They wondered much at these things. 
But they took the money, and they wrapped about 
their bodies some leaves, and came up to the top of 
the hill. Then were they perplexed. The wonder 
f ul temple of Diana was gone ; many grand edifices 
they had never seen before stood in the city ; men 
in strange garbs moved about the streets, and every 
thing was changed. 

Johannes said. It hardly seems like Ephesus. Yet 
here is the great gymnasium; here is the mighty 
theater, wherein I have seen seventy thousand men 
assembled ; here is the Agora ; there is the font where 
the sainted John the Baptist immersed the converts ; 
yonder is the prison of the good St. Paul, where we 
all did use to go to touch the ancient chains that 
bound him and be cured of our distempers ; I see 
the tomb of the disciple Luke, and afar off is the 
church wherein repose the ashes of the holy John, 
where the Christians of Ephesus go twice a year to 
gather the dust from the tomb, which is able to make 
bodies whole again that are corrupted by disease, 
and cleanse the soul from sin; but see how the 
wharves encroach upon the sea, and what multitudes 
of ships are anchored in the bay; see, also, how the 
city hath stretched abroad, far over the valley behind 
Prion, and even unto the walls of Ayassalook ; and 
lo, all the hills are white with palaces and ribbed with 
colonnades of marble. How mighty is Ephesusi 
become ! 



166 The Innocents Abroad 

And wondering at what their eyes had seen, they 
went down into the city and purchased garments and 
clothed themselves. And when they would have 
passed on, the merchant bit the coins which they had 
given him, with his teeth, and turned them about 
and looked curiously upon them, and cast them upon 
his counter, and listened if they rang; and then he 
said. These be bogus. And they said, Depart thou 
to Hades, and went their way. When they were 
come to their houses, they recognized them, albeit 
they seemed old and mean ; and they rejoiced, and 
were glad. They ran to the doors, and knocked, 
and strangers opened, and looked inquiringly upon 
them. And they said, with great excitement, while 
their hearts beat high, and the color in their faces 
came and went, Where is my father? Where is 
my mother? Where are Dionysius and Serapion, and 
Pericles, and Declus? And the strangers that 
opened said, We know not these. The Seven said, 
How, you know them not? How long have ye 
dwelt here, and whither are they gone that dwelt 
here before ye? And the strangers said. Ye play 
upon us with a jest, young men ; we and our fathers 
have sojourned under these roofs these six genera- 
tions ; the names ye utter rot upon the tombs, and 
they that bore them have run their brief race, have 
laughed and sung, have borne the sorrows and the 
weariness that were allotted them, and are at rest; 
for nine-score years the summers have come and 
gone, and the autumn leaves have fallen, since the 



The Innocents Abroad i6) 

roses faded out of their cheeks and they laid them 
to sleep with the dead. 

Then the seven young men turned them away from 
their homes, and the strangers shut the doors upon 
them. The wanderers marveled greatly, and looked 
into the faces of all they met, as hoping to find one 
that they knew ; but all were strange, and passed them 
by and spake no friendly word. They were sore dis- 
tressed and sad. Presently they spake unto a citizen 
and said, Who is King in Ephesus? And the citizen 
answered and said, Whence come ye that ye know 
not that great Laertius reigns in Ephesus? They 
looked one at the other, greatly perplexed, and pres- 
ently asked again, Where, then, is the good King 
Maximilianus? The citizen moved him apart, as one 
who is afraid, and said. Verily these men be mad, 
and dream dreams, else would they know that the 
King whereof they speak is dead above two hundred 
years agone. 

Then the scales fell from the eyes of the Seven, 
and one said, Alas, that we drank of the curious 
liquors. They have made us weary, and in dream- 
less sleep these two long centuries have we lain. Our 
homes are desolate, our friends are dead. Behold, 
the jig is up — let us die. And that same day went 
they forth and laid them down and died. And in 
that selfsame day, likewise, the Seven-up did cease 
in Ephesus, for that the Seven that were up were 
down again, and departed and dead withal. And 
the names that be upon their tombs, even unto this 



i68 The Innocents Abroad 

tlmej are Johannes Smithianus, Trumps, Gift, High, 
and Low, Jack, and The Game. And with the 
sleepers h*e also the bottles wherein were once the 
curious liquors; and upon them is writ, in ancient 
letters, such words as these — names of heathen gods 
of olden time, perchance: Rumpunch, Jinsling, 
Eggnog. 

Such is the story of the Seven Sleepers (with slight 
variations), and I know it is true, because I have 
seen the cave myself. 

Really, so firm a faith had the ancients in this 
legend, that as late as eight or nine hundred years 
ago, learned travelers held it in superstitious fear. 

Two of them record that they ventured into it, but 
ran quickly out again, not daring to tarry lest they 
should fall asleep and outlive their great-grand- 
children a century or so. Even at this day the ignor- 
ant denizens of the neighboring country prefer not 
to sleep in it. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

WHEN I last made a memorandum, we were av 
Ephesus. We are in Syria, now, encamped in 
the mountains of Lebanon, The interregnum has 
been long, both as to time and distance^ We 
brought not a relic from Ephesns ! After gathering 
up fragments of sculptured marbles and breaking 
ornaments from the interior work of the mosques : 
and after bringing them, at a cost of infinite trouble 
and fatigue, five miles on muleback to the railway- 
depot, a government officer compelled all who had 
such things to disgorge! He had an order from 
Constantinople to look out for otir party ^ and see that 
we carried nothing off. It was a wise, a just, and a 
well-deserved rebuke, but it created a sensation, I 
never resist a temptation to plunder a stranger'*! 
premises without feeling insufferably vain about it 
This time I felt proud beyond expression. I wa« 
serene in the midst of the scoldings that were heaped 
upon the Ottoman government for its affront offered 
to a pleasuring party of entirely respectable gentle- 
men and ladies. I said, ** We that have free souls^ 
?t touches us not. * * The shoe not only pinched our 



170 The Innocents Abroad 

party, but it pinched hard ; a principal sufferer dis- 
covered that the imperial order was inclosed in an 
envelope bearing the seal of the British Embassy at 
Constantinople, and therefore must have been in- 
spired by the representative of the Queen, This was 
bad — very bad. Coming solely from the Ottomans, 
it might have signified only Ottoman hatred of 
Christians, and a vulgar ignorance as to genteel meth- 
ods or expressing it; but coming from the Chris- 
tianized, educated, politic British legation, it simply 
intimated that we were a sort of gentlemen and ladies 
who would bear watching ! So the party regarded 
it, and were incensed accordingly. The truth doubt- 
less wa5, that the same precautions would have been 
taken against any travelers, because the English 
Company who have acquired the right to excavate 
Ephesus, and have paid a great sum for that right, 
need to be protected, and deserve to be. They can- 
not afford to run the risk of having their hospitality 
abused by travelers, especially since travelers are 
such notorious scorners of honest behavior. 

We sailed from Smyrna, in the wildest spirit of 
expectancy, for the chief feature, the grand goal of 
the expedition, was near at hand — we were ap- 
proaching the Holy Land ! Such a burrowing into 
the hold for trunks that had lain burled for weeks, 
yes, for months ; such a hurrying to and fro above 
decks and below; such a riotous system of packing 
and unpacking; such a littering up of the cabins 
with shirts and skirts, and indescribable and unclass- 



The innocents Abroad 171 

able odds and ends ; such a making up of bundles, 

and setting apart of umbrellas, green spectacles, and 
thick veils ; such a critical inspection of saddles and 
bridles that had never yet touched horses; such a 
cleaning and loading of revolvers and examining of 
bowie-knives; such a half-soling of the seats of 
pantaloons with serviceable buckskin; then such a 
poring over ancient maps; such a reading up of 
Bibles and Palestine travels ; such a marking out of 
routes; such exasperating efforts to divide up the 
company into little bands of congenial spirits who 
might make the long and arduous journey without 
quarreling; and morning* noon, and night, such 
mass-meetings in the cabins^ such speech-making, 
such sage suggesting, such worrying and quarrelingj 
and such a general raising of the very mischief ,, was 
never seen in the ship before I 

But it is all over now. We are cut up into parties 
of six or eight, and by this time are scattered far and 
wide. Ours is the only one, however, that is ventur- 
ing on what is called ** the long trip '* — that is, out 
into Syria, by Baalbec to Damascus, and thence 
down through the full length of Palestine. It would 
be a tedious, and also a too risky journey, at this hot 
season of the year, for any but strong, healthy men^ 
accustomed somewhat to fatigue and rough life in 
the open air^ The other parties will take shorter 
journeySo 

For the last two months we have been in a worry 
about one portion of this Holy Land pilgrimage. I 



in The Innocents Abroad 

irefer to transportation service. We knew very well 
that Palestine was a country which did not do a large 
passenger business, and every man we came across 
who knew anything about it gave us to understand 
that not half of our party would be able to get drago- 
men and animals. At Constantinople everybody fell 
to telegraphing the American consuls at Alexandria 
and Beirout to give notice that we wanted dragomen 
and transportation. We were desperate — would 
take horses, jackasses, camelopards, kangaroo;5 — ^ 
anything* At Smyrna, rnore telegraphing was done, 
to the same end. Also, fearing for the worst, w^e 
telegraphed for a large number of seats in the dili- 
gence for Damascus, and horses for the ruins of 
Baalbec. 

As might have been expected, a notion got 
abroad in Syria and Egypt that the whole population 
of the Province of America (the Turks consider us a 
trifling little province in some unvisited corner of the 
world) were coming to the Holy Land 7— and so, 
when we got to Beirout yesterday, we found the 
place full of dragomen and their outfits., We had 
all intended to go by diligence to Damascus, and 
switch off to Baalbec as we went along — because we 
expected to rejoin the ship, go to Mount Carmel, 
and take to the woods from there. However, when 
our own private party of eight found that it was pos- 
sible, and proper enough, to make the *' long trip," 
we adopted that program. We have never been 
much trouble to a consul before, but we have been 



The Inncxients Abroad 173 

a fearful nuisance to our consul at Beirout, I men- 
tion this because I cannot help admiring his patience,, 
his industry, and his accommodating spirit, I men- 
tion it, also, because I think some of our ship's com- 
pany did not give him as full credit for his excellent 
services as he deserved. 

Well, out of our eight, three were selected to 
attend to all business connected with the expedition 
The rest of us had nothing to do but look at the 
beautiful city of Beirout, with its bright, new houses 
nestled among a wilderness of green shrubbery 
spread abroad over an upland that sloped gently 
down to the sea ; and also at the mountains of Leba- 
non that environ it; and Hkewise to bathe in the 
transparent blue water that rolled its billows about 
the ship (we did not know there were sharks there) c 
We had also to range up and down through the 
town and look at the costumes. These are pictur- 
esque and fanciful, but not so varied as at Constan- 
tinople and Smyrna ; the women of Beirout add an 
agony — in the two former cities the sex wear a thin 
veil which one can see through (and they often ex- 
pose their ankles), but at Beirout they cover their 
entire faces with dark-colored or black veils, so that 
they look like mummies, and then expose their 
breasts to the public. A young gentleman (I be- 
lieve he was a Greek) volunteered to show us around 
the city, and said it would afford him great pleasurCj 
because he was studying English and wanted practice 
in that language. When we had finished the rounds 



174 The Innocents Abroad 

however, he called for remuneration — said he hoped 
the gentlemen would give him a trifle in the way of a 
few piasters (equivalent to a few five-cent pieces). 
We did so. The consul was surprised when he 
heard it, and said he knew the young fellow's family 
very well, and that they were an old and highly re- 
spectable family and worth a hundred and fifty thou- 
sand dollars! Some people, so situated, would have 
been ashamed of the berth he had with us and his 
manner of crawling into it. 

At the appointed time our business committee re- 
ported, and said all things were in readiness — that 
we were to start to-day, with horses, pack animals, 
and tents, and go to Baalbec, Damascus, the Sea of 
Tiberias, and thence southward by the way of the 
scene of Jacob's Dream and other notable Bible 
localities to Jerusalem — from thence probably to the 
Dead Sea, but possibly not — and then strike for the 
ocean and rejoin the ship three or four weeks hence 
at Joppa; terms, five dollars a day apiece, in gold, 
and everything to be furnished by the dragoman. 
They said we would live as well as at a hotel, I had 
read something like that before, and did not shame 
my judgment by believing a word of it. I said noth- 
ing, however, but packed up a blanket and a shawl 
to sleep in, pipes and tobacco, two or three woolen 
shirts, a portfolio, a guide-book, and a Bible. I 
also took along a towel and a cake of soap, to in- 
spire respect in the Arabs, who would take me for a 
king in disguise. 



The Innocents Abroad 17S 

We were to select our horses at 3 P.M. At that 
hour Abraham, the dragoman, marshaled them be- 
fore us. With all solemnity I set it down here, that 
those horses were the hardest lot I ever did come 
across, and their accoutrements were in exquisite 
keeping with their style. One brute had an eye out ; 
another had his tail sawed off close, like a rabbit, and 
was proud of it; another had a bony ridge running 
from his neck to his tail, like one of those ruined 
aqueducts one sees about Rome, and had a neck on 
him like a bowsprit; they all limped, and had sore 
backs, and likewise raw places and old scales scattered 
about their persons like brass nails in a hair trunk, 
their gaits were marvelous to contemplate, and replete 
with variety — under way the procession looked like 
a fleet in a storm. It was fearfuL Blucher shook 
his head and said : 

" That dragon is going to get himself into trouble 
fetching these old crates out of the hospital the way 
they are, unless he has got a permit.** 

I said nothing. The display was exactly according 
to the guide-book, and were we not traveling by the 
guide-book ? I selected a certain horse because I 
thought I saw him shy, and I thought that a horse 
that had spirit enough to shy was not to be despised c 

At 6 o'clock P. M. we came to a halt here on the 
breezy summit of a shapely mountain overlooking 
the sea, and the handsome valley where dwelt some 
of those enterprising Phoenicians of ancient times 
we read so much about ; all around us are what were 



176 The Innocents Abroad 

once the dominions of Hiram, King of Tyre, who 
furnished timber from the cedars of these Lebanon 
hills to build portions of King Solomon's Temple 
with. 

Shortly after six, our pack-train arrived. I had 
not seen it before, and a good right I had to be 
astonished. We had nineteen serving men and 
twenty-six pack mules ! It was a perfect caravan , 
It looked like one, too, as it wound among the 
rocks. I wondered what in the very mischief we 
wanted with such a vast turnout as that, for eight 
men. 1 wondered awhile, but soon I began to long 
for a tin plate, and some bacon and beans, I had 
camped out mxany and many a time before, and 
knew just what was coming. I went off, without 
waiting for serving men, and unsaddled my horse, 
and washed such portions of his ribs and his spine 
as projected through his hide, and when I came 
back, behold five stately circus-tents were up — tents 
that were brilliant, within, with blue and gold and 
crimson, and all manner of splendid adornment ! I 
was speechless. Then they brought eight little iron 
bedsteads, and set them up in the tents; they put a 
soft mattress and pillows and good blankets and two 
snow-white sheets on each bed. Next, they rigged 
a table about the center-pole, and on it placed 
pewter pitchers, basins, soap, and the whitest of 
towels — one set for each man; they pointed to 
pockets in the tent, and said we could put our small 
trifles in them for convenience, and if we needed 



The Innocents Abroad 177 

pins or such things, they were sticking everywhere. 
Then came the finishing touch — they spread carpets 
on the floor! I simply said, ** If you call this 
camping out, ail right — but it isn't the style /am 
used to ; my little baggage that I brought along is 
at a discount." 

It grew dark, and they put candles on the tables 
— candles set in bright, new, brazen candlesticks. 
And soon the bell — a genuine, simon-pure bell — 
rang, and we were invited to ** the saloon.'* I had 
thought before that we had a tent or so too many, 
but now here was one, at least, provided for; it 
was to be used for nothing but an eating saloon. 
Like the others, it was high enough for a family of 
giraffes to live in, and was very handsome and clean 
and bright-colored within. It was a gem of a place. 
A table for eight, and eight canvas chairs ; a table- 
cloth and napkins whose whiteness and whose fine- 
ness laughed to scorn the things we were used to in 
the great excursion steamer; knives and forks, soup- 
plates, dinner-plates — everything, in the hand- 
somest kind of style. It was wonderful ! And they 
call this camping out. Those stately fellows in 
baggy trowsers and turbaned fezes brought in a 
dinner which consisted of roast mutton, roast 
chicken, roast goose, potatoes, bread, tea, pudding, 
apples, and delicious grapes; the viands were better 
cooked than any we had eaten for weeks, and the 
table made a finer appearance, with its large German 
silver candlesticks and other finery, than any table 
12 «* 



178 The Innocents Abroad 

we had sat down to for a good while, and yet that 
polite dragoman, Abraham, came bowing in and 
apologizing for the whole affair, on account of the 
unavoidable confusion of getting under way for a 
very long trip, and promising to do a great deal 
better in future ! 

It is midnight now, and we break camp at six in 
the morning. 

They call this camping out. At this rate it is a 
glorious privilege to be a pilgrim to the Holy Land. 



CHAPTER XV. 

WE are camped near Temnin-el-Foka — a name 
which the boys have simplified a good deal, 
for the sake of convenience in spelling. They call 
it Jacksonville. It sounds a little strangely, here in 
the Valley of Lebanon, but it has the merit of being 
easier to remember than the Arabic name. 

"COME LIKE SPIRITS, SO DEPART." 

** The night shall be filled with music. 
And the cares that infest the day 
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs, 
And as silently steal away." 

I slept very soundly last night, yet when the 
dragoman's bell rang at half-past five this morning 
and the cry went abroad of * * Ten minutes to dress 
for breakfast!** I heard both. It surprised me, 
because I have not heard the breakfast gong in the 
ship for a month, and whenever we have had occa- 
sion to fire a salute at daylight, I have only found it 
out in the course of conversation afterward. How- 
ever, camping out, even though it be in a gorgeous 
tent, makes one fresh and lively in the morning "— 
especially if the air you are breathing is the cool^ 
fresh air of the mountains. 



180 The Innocents Abroad 

I was dressed within the ten minutes, and came 
out. The saloon tent had been stripped of its sides, 
and had nothing left but its roof ; so when we sat 
down to table we could look out over a noble 
panorama of mountain, sea, and hazy valley. And 
sitting thus, the sun rose slowly up and suffused the 
picture with a world of rich coloring. 

Hot mutton-chops, fried chicken, omelettes, fried 
potatoes, and coffee — all excellent. This was the 
bill of fare. It was sauced with a savage appetite 
purchased by hard riding the day before, and re- 
freshing sleep in a pur6 atmosphere. As I called 
for a second cup of coffee, I glanced over my 
shoulder, and behold, our white village was gone — 
the splendid tents had vanished like magic ! It was 
wonderful how quickly those Arabs had ** folded 
their tents'*; and it was wonderful, also, how 
quickly they had gathered the thousand odds and 
ends of the camp together and disappeared with 
them. 

By half -past six we were under way, and all the 
Syrian world seemed to be under way also. The 
road was filled with mule trains and long processions 
of camels. This reminds me that we have been 
trying for some time to think what a camel looks 
like, and now we have made it out. When he is 
down on all his knees, flat on his breast to receive 
his load, he looks something like a goose swimming; 
and when he is upright he looks like an ostrich with 
an extra set of legs. Camels are not beautiful, and 



The Innocents Abroad 181 

their long under lip gives them an exceedingly 
'*gallus*'* expression. They have immense flat, 
forked cushions of feet, that make a track in the 
dust Hke a pie with a slice cut out of it. They are 
not particular about their diet. They would eat a 
tombstone if they could bite it. A thistle grows 
about here which has needles on it that would pierce 
through leather, I think; if one touches you, you 
can find relief in nothing but profanity. The camels 
eat these. They show by their actions that they 
enjoy them. I suppose it would be a real treat to a 
camel to have a keg of nails for supper. 

While I am speaking of animals, I will mention 
that I have a horse now by the name of ** Jericho.*' 
He is a mare. I have seen remarkable horses be- 
fore, but none so remarkable as this. I wanted a 
horse that could shy, and this one fills the bill. I 
had an idea that shying indicated spirit. If I was 
correct, I have got the most spirited horse on earth. 
He shies at everything he comes across, with the 
utmost impartiality. He appears to have a mortal 
dread of telegraph poles, especially; and it is fortu- 
nate that these are on both sides of the road, because 
as it is now, I never fall off twice in succession on 
the same side. If I fell on the same side always, it 
would get to be monotonous after a while. This 
creature has scared at everything he has seen to- 
day, except a haystack. He walked up to that with 



* Excuse the slang — no other word will describe it. 



182 The Innocents Abroad 

an intrepidity and a recklessness that were astonish* 
ing. And it would fill any one with admiration to 
see how he preserves his self-possession in the pres- 
ence of a barley-sack. This dare-devil bravery will 
be the death of this horse some day. 

He is not particularly fast, but I think he will get 
me through the Holy Land. He has only one fault. 
His tail has been chopped off or else he has sat 
down on it too hard, some time or other, and he has 
to fight the flies with his heels. This is all very 
well, but when he tries to kick a fly off the top of his 
head with his hind foot, it is too much variety. He 
is going to get himself into trouble that way some 
day. He reaches around and bites my legs, too. 
I do not care particularly about that, only I do not 
like to see a horse too sociable. 

I think the owner of this prize had a wrong 
opinion about him. He had an idea that he was 
one of those fiery, untamed steeds, but he is not of 
that character. I know the Arab had this idea, be- 
cause when he brought the horse out for inspection 
in Beirout, he kept jerking at the bridle and shout- 
ing in Arabic, " Whoa ! will you ? Do you want to 
run away, you ferocious beast, and break your 
neck?'* when all the time the horse was not doing 
anything in the world, and only looked like he 
wanted to lean up against something and think. 
Whenever he is not shying at things, or reaching 
after a fly, he wants to do that yet. How it would 
surprise hh owner to know this. 



The Innocents Abroad 183 

We have been in a historical section of country all 
day. At noon we camped three hours and took 
luncheon at Mekseh, near the junction of the 
Lebanon Mountains and the Jebel el Kuneiyiseh. 
and looked down into the immense, level, garden- 
like Valley of Lebanon. To-night we are camping 
near the same valley, and have a very wide sweep of 
it in view. We can see the I >ng, whale-backed 
ridge of Mount Hermon projecting above the eastern 
hills. The ** dews of Hermon ** are falling upon us 
now, and the tents are almost soaked with them. 

Over the way from us, and higher up the valley 
we can discern, through the glasses, the faint out- 
lines of the wonderful ruins of Baalbec, the sup- 
posed Baal-Gad of Scripture. Joshua and another 
person were the two spies who were sent into this 
land of Canaan by the children of Israel to report 
upon its character — I mean they were the spies who 
reported favorably. They took back with them 
some specimens of the grapes of this country, and 
in the children's picture-books they are always 
represented as bearing one monstrous bunch swung 
to a pole between them, a respectable load for a 
pack-train. The Sunday-school books exaggerated 
it a little. The grapes are most excellent to this 
day, but the bunches are not as large as those in 
the pictures. I was surprised and hurt when I saw 
them, because those colossal bunches of grapes 
were one of my most cherished juvenile traditions. 
Joshua reported favorably, and the children of 



184 The Innocents Abroad 

Israel journeyed on, with Moses at the head ot the 
general government, and Joshua in command of the 
army of six hundred thousand fighting men. Of 
women and children and civihans there was a count- 
less swarm. Of all that mighty host, none but the 
two faithful spies ever lived to set their feet in the 
Promised Land. They and their descendants wan- 
dered forty years in the desert, and then Moses, the 
gifted warrior, poet, statesman, and philosopher, 
went up into Pisgah and met his mysterious fate. 
Where he was buried no man knows — for 

** . . . no man dug that sepulchre. 
And no man saw it e'er — 
For the sons of God upturned the sod 
And laid the dead m.an there S " 

Then Joshua began his terrible raid, and from 
Jericho clear to this Baal- Gad, he swept the land 
like the Genius of Destruction. He slaughtered the 
people, laid waste their soil, and razed their cities to 
the ground. He wasted thirty-one kings also. One 
may call it that, though really it can hardly be 
called wasting them, because there were always 
plenty of kings in those days, and to spare. At 
any rate, he destroyed thirty-one kings, and divided 
up their realms among his Israelites. He divided 
up this valley stretched out here before us, and so 
it was once Jewish territory. The Jews have long 
since disappeared from it, however. 

Back yonder, an hour's journey from here, we 
passed through an Arab village of stone dry -goods 



Tlie innocents Abroad 185 

boxes (they look like that), where Noah*s tomb lies 
under lock and key. [Noah built the ark.] Over 
these old hills and valleys the ark that contained all 
that was left of a vanished world once floated. 

I make no apology for detailing the above informa- 
tion. It will be news to some of my readers, at 
any rate. 

Noah's tomb is built of stone, and is covered with 
a long stone building. Bucksheesh let us in. The 
building had to be long, because the grave of the 
honored old navigator is two hundred and ten feet 
long itself! It is only about four feet high, though. 
He must have cast a shadow like a lightning-rod 
The proof that this is the genuine spot where Noah 
was buried can only be doubted by uncommonly 
incredulous people. The evidence is pretty straight 
Shem, the son of Noah, was present at the burial, 
and showed the place to his descendants, who trans- 
mitted the knowledge to their descendants, and the 
lineal descendants of these introduced themselves to 
us to-day. It was pleasant to make the acquaintance 
of members of so respectable a family. It was a 
thing to be proud of. It was the next thing to 
being acquainted with Noah himself. 

Noah's memorable voyage will always possess a 
living interest for me, henceforward. 

If ever an oppressed race existed, it is this one we 
see fettered around us under the inhuman tyranny 
of the Ottoman .empire. I wish Europe would let 
Russia annihilate Turkey a little — not much, but 



186 The Innocents Abroad 

enough to make it difficult to find the place again 
without a divining-rod or a diving-bell. The Syrians 
are very poor, and yet they are ground down by a 
system of taxation that would drive any other nation 
frantic. Last year their taxes were heavy enough, 
in all conscience — but this year they have been 
increased by the addition of taxes that were forgiven 
them in times of famine in former years. On top 
of this the government has levied a tax of one-tenth 
of the whole proceeds of the land. This is only 
half the story. The Pacha of a Pachalic does not 
trouble himself with appointing tax-collectors. He 
figures up what all these taxes ought to amount to 
in a certain district. Then he farms the collection 
out. He calls the rich men together, the highest 
bidder gets the speculation, pays the Pacha on the 
spot, and then sells out to smaller fry, who sell in 
turn to a piratical horde of still smaller fry. These 
latter compel the peasant to bring his little trifle of 
grain to the village, at his own cost. It must be 
weighed, the various taxes set apart, and the re- 
mainder returned to the producer. But the collector 
delays this duty day after day, while the producer's 
family are perishing for bread; at last the poor 
wretch, who cannot but understand the game, says, 
**Take a quarter — take half — take two-thirds if 
you will, and let me go !** It is a most outrageous 
state of things. 

These people are naturally good-hearted and in- 
telligent, and, with education and liberty, would be a 



The Innocents Abroad 187 

happy and contented race. They often appeal to 
the stranger to know if the great world will not some 
day come to their relief and save them. The Sultan 
has been lavishing money like water in England and 
Paris, but his subjects are suffering for it now. 

This fashion of camping out bewilders me. We 
have bootjacks and a bathtub now, and yet all the 
mysteries the pack-mules carry are not revealed 
What next? 



CHAPTER XVL 

WE had a tedious ride of about five hours, in the 
sun, across the Valley of Lebanon. It 
proved to be not quite so much of a garden as it 
had seemed from the hillsides. It was a desert, 
weed-grown waste, littered thickly with stones the 
size of a man's fist„ Here and there the natives had 
scratched the ground and reared a sickly crop of 
grain, but for the most part the valley was given up 
to a handful of shepherds, whose flocks were doing 
what they honestly could to get a living, but the 
chances were against them. We saw rude piles of 
stones standing near the roadside, at intervals, and 
recognized the custom of marking boundaries which 
obtained in Jacob's time. There were no walls, no 
fences, no hedges — nothing to secure a man's pos- 
sessions but these random heaps of stones. The 
Israelites held them sacred in the old patriarchal 
times, and these other Arabs, their lineal descend- 
ants, do so likewise. An American, of ordinary 
intelligence, would soon widely extend his property, 
at an outlay of mere manual labor, performed at 
night, under so loose a system of fencing as this. 

(188) 



« 



The Innocents Abroad 189 

The plows these people use are simply a sharp- 
ened stick, such as Abraham plowed with, and they 
still winnow their wheat as he did — they pile it on 
the house top, and then toss it by shovelfuls into 
the air until the wind has blown all the chaff away. 
They never invent anything, never learn anything. 

We had a fine race, of a mile, with an Arab 
perched on a camel. Some of the horses were fast, 
and made very good time, but the camel scampered 
by them without any very great effort. The yelling 
and shouting, and whipping and galloping, of all 
parties interested, made it an exhilarating, exciting, 
and particularly boisterous race. 

At eleven o'clock, our eyes fell upon the walls 
and columns of Baalbec, a noble ruin whose history 
is a sealed book. It has stood there for thousands 
of years, the wonder and admiration of travelers; 
but who built it, or when it was built, are questions 
that may never be answered. One thing is very 
sure, though. Such grandeur of design, and such 
grace of execution, as one sees in the temples of 
Baalbec, have not been equaled or even approached 
in any work of men's hands that has been built 
within twenty centuries past. 

The great Temple of the Sun, the Temple of 
Jupiter, and several smaller temples, are clustered 
together in the midst of one of these miserable 
Syrian villages, and look strangely enough in such 
plebeian company. These temples are built upon 
massive substructions that might support a world., 



190 The Innocents Abroad 

almost; the materials used are blocks of stone as 
large as an omnibus — very few, if any, of them are 
smaller than a carpenter's tool chest — and these 
substructions are traversed by tunnels of masonry 
through which a train of cars might pass. With 
such foundations as these, it is little wonder that 
Baalbec has lasted so long. The Temple of the 
Sun is nearly three hundred feet long and one hun- 
dred and sixty feet wide. It had fifty-four columns 
around it, but only six are standing now — the 
others lie broken at its- base, a confused and pic- 
turesque heap. The six columns are perfect, as 
also are their bases, Corinthian capitals and entabla- 
ture — and six more shapely columns do not exist. 
The columns and the entablature together are ninety 
feet high — a prodigious altitude for shafts of stone 
to reach, truly — and yet one only thinks of their 
beauty and symmetry when looking at them; the 
pillars look slender and delicate, the entablature, 
with its elaborate sculpture, looks like rich stucco- 
work. But when you have gazed aloft till your eyes 
are weary, you glance at the great fragments of 
pillars among which you are standing, and find that 
they are eight feet through ; and with them lie beau- 
tiful capitals apparently as large as a small cottage ; 
and also single slabs of stone, superbly sculptured, 
that are four or five feet thick, and would com- 
pletely cover the floor of any ordinary parlor. You 
wonder where these monstrous things came from, 
and it takes some little time to satisfy yourself that 



The Innocents Abroad 191 

the airy and graceful fabric that towers above your 
head is made up of their mates. It seems too 
preposterous. 

The Temple of Jupiter is a smaller ruin than the 
one I have been speaking of, and yet is immense. 
It is in a tolerable state of preservation. One row 
of nine columns stands almost uninjured. They are 
sixty-five feet high and support a sort of porch or 
roof, which connects them with the roof of the 
building. This porch-roof is composed of tremen- 
dous slabs of stone, which are so finely sculptured 
on the under side that the work looks like a fresco 
from below. One or two of these slabs had fallen, 
and again I wondered if the gigantic masses of 
carved stone that lay about me were no larger than 
those above my head. Within the temple, the 
ornamentation was elaborate and colossal. What a 
wonder of architectural beauty and grandeur this 
edifice must have been when it was new ! And what 
a noble picture it and its statelier companion, with 
the chaos of mighty fragments scattered about them, 
yet makes in the moonlight ! 

I cannot conceive how those immense blocks of 
stone were ever hauled from the quarries, or how 
they were ever raised to the dizzy heights they 
occupy in the temples. And yet these sculptured 
blocks are trifles in size compared with the rough- 
hewn blocks that form the wide veranda or platform 
which surrounds the Great Temple. One stretch of 
that platform, two hundred feet long, is composed of 



192 The innocents Abroad 

blocks of stone as large and some of them larger, 
than a street-car. They surmount a wall about ten 
or twelve feet high. I thought those were large 
rocks, but they sank into insignificance compared 
with those which formed another section of the 
platform. These were three in number, and I 
thought that each of them was about as long as 
three street cars placed end to end, though, of 
course, they are a third wider and a third higher 
than a street car. Perhaps two railway freight cars 
of the largest pattern, placed end to end, might 
better represent their size. In combined length 
these three stones stretch nearly two hundred feet; 
they are thirteen feet square ; two of them are sixty- 
four feet long each, and the third is sixty-nine. 
They are built into the massive wall some twenty 
feet above the ground. They are there, but ho\M 
they got there is the question. I have seen the hull 
of a steamboat that was smaller than one of those 
stones. All these great walls are as exact and 
shapely as the flimsy things we build of bricks in 
these days. A race of gods or of giants must have 
inhabited Baalbec many a century ago. Men hke 
the men of our day could hardly rear such temples 
as these. 

We went to the quarry from whence the stones oi 
Baalbec were taken. It was about a quarter of a 
mile off, and down hill. In a great pit lay the mate 
of the largest stone in the ruins. It lay there just 
as the giants of that old forgotten time had left it 



The Innocents Abroad 193 

when they were called hence — just as they had left 
it, to remain for thousands of years, an eloquent 
rebuke unto such as are prone to think slightingly of 
the men who lived before them. This enormous 
block lies there, squared and ready for the builders* 
hands — a solid mass fourteen feet by seventeen, 
and but a few inches less than seventy feet long I 
Two buggies could be driven abreast of each other^ 
on its surface, from one end of it to the other, and 
leave room enough for a man or two to walk on 
either side. 

One might swear that all the John Smiths and 
George Wilkinsons, and all the other pitiful nobodies 
between Kingdom Come and Baalbec would inscribe 
their poor little names upon the walls of Baalbec *s 
magnificent ruins, and would add the town, the 
county, and the state they came from — and, swearing 
thus, be infallibly correct. It is a pity some great 
ruin does not fall in and flatten out some of these 
reptiles, and scare their kind out of ever giving their 
names to fame upon any walls or monuments againj 
forever. 

Properly, with the sorry relics we bestrode, it was 
a three-days journey to Damascus. It was neces- 
sary that we should do it in less than two. It was 
necessary because our three pilgrims would not 
travel on the Sabbath day. We were all perfectly 
willing to keep the Sabbath day, but there are times 
when to keep the letter of a sacred law whose spirit Is 
righteous, becomes a sin and this was a case m 
18»« 



194 The Innocents Abroad 

point. We pleaded for the tired, ill-treated horses> 
and tried to show that their faithful service deserved 
kindness in return, and their hard lot compassion. 
But when did ever self-righteousness know the senti- 
ment of pity? What were a few long hours added 
to the hardships of some overtaxed brutes when 
weighed against the peril of those human souls? It 
was not the most promising party to travel with and 
hope to gain a higher veneration for religion through 
the example of its devotees. We said the Saviour, 
who pitied dumb beasts and taught that the ox must 
be rescued from the mire even on the Sabbath day, 
would not have counseled a forced march like this. 
We said the ** long trip " was exhausting and there- 
fore dangerous in the blistering heats of summer, 
even v/hen the ordinary days* stages were traversed, 
and if we persisted in this hard march, some of us 
might be stricken down with the fevers of the 
country in consequence of it. Nothing could move 
the pilgrims. They must press on. Men might 
die, horses might die, but they must enter upon 
holy soil next week, with no Sabbath-breaking stain 
upon them. Thus they were willing to commit a 
sin against the spirit of religious law, in order that 
they might preserve the letter of it. It was not 
worth while to tell them *'the letter kills." I am 
talking now about personal friends; men whom I 
like; men who are good citizens; who are honor- 
able, upright, conscientious : but whose idea of the 
SavAOur's religion seems to me distorted c They 



The Innocents Abroad 195 

iecture our shortcomings unsparingly, and every 
night they call us together and read to us chapters 
from the Testament that are full of gentleness, of 
charity, and of tender mercy ; and then all the next 
day they stick to their saddles clear up to the sum- 
mits of these rugged mountains, and clear down 
again. Apply the Testament's gentleness, and 
charity, and tender mercy to a toiling, worn, and 
weary horse? Nonsense — these are for God's 
human creatures, not His dumb ones. What the 
pilgrims choose to do, respect for their almost 
sacred character demands that I should allow to pass 
— but I would so like to catch any other member of 
the party riding his horse up one of these exhaust- 
ing hills once ! 

We have given the pilgrims a good many exam- 
ples that might benefit them, but it is virtue thrown 
away. They have never heard a cross word out of 
our lips toward each other -— but they have quarreled 
once or twice. We love to hear them at it, after 
they have been lecturing us. The very first thing 
they did, coming ashore at Beirout, was to quarrel 
in the boat. I have said I like them, and I do like 
them — but every time they read me a scorcher of a 
lecture I mean to talk back in print. 

Not content with doubling the legitimate stages^ 
they switched off the main road and went away out 
of the way to visit an absurd fountain called Figia, 
because Balaam's ass had drank there once. So we 
fourneyed on, through the terrible hills and desert"? 



19^ The Ifmocents Abroad 

and the roasting sun, and then far Into the night, 
seeking the honored pool of Balaam's ass, the patron 
aaint of all pilgrims like us. I find no entry but this 
In my note-book^ 

" Rode to-day, altogether, thirteen hours, through deserts, partly, 
and partly over barren, unsightly hills, and latterly through wild, rocky 
scenery, and camped at about eleven o'clock at night on che banks of a 
Mmpid stream, near a Syrian village. Do not know its name — do not 
wish to know it — want to go to bed. Two horses lame (mine and 
Jack's) and the others worn out. Jack and I walked three or four 
miles, over the hills, and led the horses. Fun — but of a mild type.** 

Twelve or thirteen hours in the saddle, even in a 
Christian land and a Christian climate, and on a 
good horse, is a tiresome journey; but in an oven 
like Syria, in a ragged spoon of a saddle that slips 
fore-and-aft, and ** thort-ships,** and every way, and 
on a horse that is tired and lame, and yet must be 
whipped and spurred with hardly a moment's cessa- 
tion all day long, till the blood comes from his side, 
and your conscience hurts you every time you 
strike^ if you are half a man, — it is a journey to be 
remembered in bitterness of spirit and execrated 
with emphasis for a liberal division of a man's life- 
time. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE next day was an outrage upon men and 
horses both. It was another thirteen-hour 
stretch (including an hour's "nooning"). It was 
over the barrenest chalk-hills and through the 
baldest canons that even Syria can show. The heat 
quivered in the air everywherCo In the canons we 
almost smothered in the baking atmosphere. On 
high ground, the reflection from the chalk-hills was 
blinding. It was cruel to urge the crippled horses, 
but it had to be done in order to make Damascus 
Saturday night. We saw ancient tombs and temples 
of fanciful architecture carved out of the solid rock 
high up in the face of precipices above our heads, 
but we had neither time nor strength to climb up 
there and examine them. The terse language of my 
note-book will answer for the rest of this day's ex- 
periences: 

Broke camp at 7 A. M., and made a ghastly trip through the Zeb 
Dana valley and the rough mountains — horses limping and that Arab 
screech-owl that does most of the singing and carries the water-skinsg 
always a thousand miles ahead of course, and no water to drink — will 
he never die? Beautiful stream in a chasm, lined thick with pome- 
granate, fig, olive, and quince orchards, and nooned an hour at the 

Uq7) 



19S The Innocents Abroad. 

celebrated Balaam's Ass Fountain of Figia, second in size in Syria, and 
the coldest water out of Siberia — guide-books do not say Balaam's 
OSS ever drank there — somebody been imposing on the pilgrims, may 
be. Bathed in it — Jack and I. Only a second — ice water. It is the 
principal source of the Abana river — only one-half mile down to where 
it joins. Beautiful place — giant trees all around — so shady and cool, 
M one could keep awake — vast stream gushes straight out from under 
the mountain in a torrent. Over it is a very ancient ruin, with no known 
history — supposed to have been for the worship of the deity of the 
fountain or Balaam's ass or somebody. Wretched nest of human vermin 
about the fountain — rags, dirt, sunken cheeks, pallor of sickness, sores, 
projecting bones, dull, aching misery in their eyes and ravenous hunger 
speaking from every eloquent fiber and muscle from head to foot. How 
they sprang upon a bone, how they crunched the bread we gave them ! 
Such as these to swarm about one and watch every bite he takes with 
greedy looks, and swallow unconsciously every time he swallows, as if 
they half fancied the precious morsel went down their own throats — hurry 
up the caravan ! — I never shall enjoy a meal in this distressful country. 
To think of eating three times every day under such circumstances for 
three weeks yet — it is worse punishment than riding all day in the sun. 
There are sixteen starving babies from one to six years old in the party, 
and their legs are no larger than broom handles. Left the fountain at 
I P. M. (the fountain took us at least two hours out of our way), and 
reached Mahomet's lookout perch, over Damascus, in time to get a 
good long look before it was necessary to move on. Tired? Ask of 
the winds that far away with fragments strewed the sea. 

As the glare of day mellowed into twilight, we 
looked down upon a picture which is celebrated all 
over the world. I think I have read about four 
hundred times that when Mahomet was a simple 
camel-driver he reached this point and looked down 
upon Damascus for the first time, and then made a 
certain renowned remark. He said man could enter 
only one paradise ; he preferred to go to the one 
above. So he sat down there and feasted his eyes 
upon the earthly paradise of Damascus^ and thee 



The innocents Aoroad 199 

went away without entering its gates.* They have 
erected a tower on the hill to mark the spot where 
he stood. 

Damascus ts beautiful from the mountain. It is 
beautiful even to foreigners accustomed to luxuriant 
vegetation, and I can easily understand how un- 
speakably beautiful it must be to eyes that are only 
used to the God-forsaken barrenness and desolation 
of Syria. I should think a Syrian would go wild 
with ecstasy when such a picture bursts upon him 
for the first time. 

From his high perch, one sees before him and 
below him a wall of dreary mountains, shorn of 
vegetation, glaring fiercely in the sun; it fences in 
a level desert of yellow sand, smooth as velvet and 
threaded far away with fine lines that stand for roads, 
and dotted with creeping mites we know are came) 
trains and journeying men ; right in the midst of the 
desert is spread a billowy expanse of green foliage • 
and nestling in its heart sits the great white city, like 
an island of pearls and opals gleaming out of a sea 
of emeralds. This is the picture you see spread fai 
below you, with distance to soften it, the sun to 
glorify it, strong contrasts to heighten the effects, 
and over it and about it a drowsing air of repose to 
spiritualize it and make it seem rather a beautiful 
estray from the mysterious worlds we visit in dreams 
than a substantial tenant of our coarse, dull globe. 
And when you think of the leagues of blighted^ 
blasted > sandy, rocky, sunburnt^ ugly, dreary j, in 



200 The linnocents Abroad 

famous country you have ridden over to get here, 
you think it is the most beautiful, beautiful picture 
that ever human eyes rested upon in all the broad 
universe ! If I were to go to Damascus again, I 
would camp on Mahomet's hill about a week, and 
then go away. There is no need to go inside the 
walls. The Prophet was wise without knowing it 
when he decided not to go down into the paradise 
of Damascus. 

There is an honored old tradition that the immense 
garden which Damascus stands in was the Garden of 
Eden, and modern writers have gathered up many 
chapters of evidence tending to show that it really 
was the Garden of Eden, and that the rivers Pharpar 
and Abana are the '*two rivers'* that watered 
Adam's Paradise,. It may be so, but it is not para- 
dise now, and one would be as happy outside of it 
as he would be likely to be within. It is so crooked 
and cramped and dirty that one cannot realize that 
he is in the splendid city he saw from the hilltop. 
The gardens are hidden by high mud-walls, and the 
paradise is become a very sink of pollution and un- 
comeliness, Damascus has plenty of clear, pure 
water in it, though, and this is enough, of itself, to 
make an Arab think it beautiful and blessed. Water 
>s scarce in blistered Syria. We run railways by 
our large cities in America; in Syria they curve the 
roads so as to make them run by the meager little 
puddles they call '* fountains," and which are not 
found oftener on a journey than every four hour§. 



The Innocents Abroad 201 

But the ** rivers ** of Pharpar and Abana of Scrip- 
ture (mere creeks) run through Damascus, and so 
every house and every garden have their sparkling 
fountains and rivulets of water. With her forest of 
foliage and her abundance of water, Damascus must 
be a wonder of wonders to the Bedouin from the 
deserts. Damascus is simply an oasis — that is 
what it isc For four thousand years its waters have 
not gone dry or its fertility failed. Now we can 
understand why the city has existed so lorgc It 
could not die. So long as its waters remain to it 
away out there in the midst of that howling desert^ 
so long will Damascus live to bless the sight of the 
tired and thirsty wayfarer. 

•* Though old as history itself, thou art fresh as the breath of spring, 
blooming as thine own rose-bud, and fragrant as thine own orange 
flower, O Damascus, pearl of the East ! " 

Damascus dates back anterior to the days of 
Abraham, and is the oldest city in the world.. It 
was founded by Uz, the grandson of Noah. **The 
early history of Damascus is shrouded in the mists 
of a hoary antiquity.*' Leave the matters v/ritten 
of in the first eleven chapters of the Old Testament 
out, and no recorded event has occurred in the world 
but Damascus was in existence to receive the news 
of it. Go back as far as you will into the vague 
past, there was always a Damascus. In the writings 
of every century for more than four thousand years, 
its name has been mentioned and its praises sungo 
To Damascus, years are only moments, decades are 



202 The Innocents Abroad 

only flitting trifles of time. She measures time, not 
by days and months and years, but by the empires 
she has seen rise and prosper and crumble to ruin^ 
She is a type of immortality. She saw the founda- 
tions of Baalbec, and Thebes, and Ephesus laid; 
she saw these villages grow into mighty cities, and 
amaze the world with their grandeur — and she has 
lived to see them desolate, deserted, and given over 
to the owls and the bats. She saw the Israelitish 
empire exalted, and she saw it annihilated. She 
saw Greece rise, and flourish two thousand years, 
and die. In her old age she saw Rome built; she 
saw it overshadow the world with its power ; she saw 
it perish. The few hundreds of years of Genoese 
and Venetian might and splendor were, to grave old 
Damascus, only a trifling scintillation hardly worth 
remembering. Damascus has seen all that has ever 
occurred on earth, and still she lives. She has 
looked upon the dry bones of a thousand empires, 
and will see the tombs of a thousand more before 
she dies. Though another claims the name, old 
Damascus is by right the Eternal City. 

We reached the city gates just at sundown. They 
do say that one can get into any walled city of 
Syria, after night, for bucksheesh, except Damascus. 
But Damascus, with its four thousand years of re- 
spectability in the world, has many old fogy notions. 
There are no street lamps there, and the law compels 
all who go abroad at night to carry lanterns, just as 
was the case in old days, when heroes and heroines 



Tlie Innocents Abroad 2(W 

of the Arabian Nights walked the streets of Damas- 
cus, or flew away toward Bagdad on enchanted 
carpetSo 

It was fairly dark a few minutes after we got 
within the wall, and we rode long distances through 
wonderfully crooked streets, eight to ten feet wide, 
and shut in on either side by the high mud walls of 
the gardens. At last we got to where lanterns 
could be seen flitting about here and there, and 
knew we were in the midst of the curious old city. 
In a little narrow street, crowded with our pack- 
mules and with a swarm of uncouth Arabs, we 
alighted, and through a kind of a hole in the wall en- 
tered the hotel. We stood in a great flagged court, 
with flowers and citron trees about us, and a huge 
tank in the center that was receiving the waters of 
many pipes. We crossed the court and entered the 
rooms prepared to receive four of us. In a large 
marble-paved recess between the two rooms was a 
tank of clear, cool water, which was kept running 
over all the time by the streams that were pouring 
into it from half a dozen pipes. Nothing, in this 
scorching, desolate land could look so refreshing as 
this pure water flashing in the lamplight ; nothing 
could look so beautiful, nothing could sound so 
delicious as this mimic rain to ears long unaccus- 
tomed to sounds of such a nature. Our rooms were 
large, comfortably furnished, and even had their 
floors clothed with soft, cheerful-tinted carpets. It 
was a pleasant thing to see a carpet again, for if 



204 Tlie innocents Abroad 

there is anything drearier than the tomb-like, stone- 
paved parlors and bedrooms of Europe and Asia, I 
do not know what it is. They make one think of 
the grave all the time. A very broad, gaily capari- 
soned divan, some twelve or fourteen feet long, ex- 
tended across one side of each room, and opposite 
were single beds with spring mattresses. There were 
great looking-glasses and marble-top tables. All 
this luxury was as grateful to systems and senses 
worn out with an exhausting day's travel, as it was 
unexpected — for one cannot tell what to expect in 
a Turkish city of even a quarter of a million inhabit- 
ants c 

I do not know, but I think they used that tank 
between the rooms to draw drinking water from; 
that did not occur to me, however; until I had 
dipped my baking head far down into its cool 
depths. I thought of it then, and, superb as the 
bath was, I was sorry I had taken it, and was about 
to go and explain to the landlord. But a finely 
curled and scented poodle dog frisked up and nipped 
the calf of my leg just then, and before I had time 
to think I had soused him to the bottom of the tank, 
and when I saw a servant coming with a pitcher I 
went off and left the pup trying to climb out and not 
succeeding very well. Satisfied revenge was all I 
needed to make me perfectly happy, and when I 
walked in to supper that first night in Damascus I 
was in that condition. We lay on those divans 
a long time, after supper, smoking narghilis and 



The innocents Abroad 20S 

iong-stemmed chibouks, and talking about the dread- 
ful ride of the day, and I knew thsn what I had 
sometimes known before — that it is worth while to get 
tired out, because one so enjoys resting afterward . 

In the morning we sent for donkeys It h worthy 
of note that we had to send for these thingSc I said 
Damascus was an old fossil, and she is Anywhere 
else we would have been assailed by a clamorous 
army of donkey-drivers, guides, peddlersj and beg- 
gars — but in Damascus they so hate the very sight 
of a foreign Christian that they want no intercourse 
Vv^hatever with him; only a year or two ago, his 
person was not always safe in Damascus streets. It 
h the most fanatical Mohammedan purgatory out of 
Arabia Where you see one green turban of a Hadji 
elsewhere (the honored sign that my lord has made 
*:he pilgrimage to Mecca), I think you will see a 
dozen in Damascus. The Damascenes are the ugli- 
est, wickedest looking villains we have seen. All 
the veiled women we had seen yet, nearly, left their 
eyes exposed, but numbers of these in Damascus 
completely hid the face under a close-drawn black 
veil that made the woman look like a mummy. If 
ever we caught an eye exposed it was quickly hidden 
from our contaminating Christian vision ; the beggars 
actually passed us by without demanding buck- 
sheesh ; the merchants in the bazaars did not hold 
up their goods and cry out eagerly, ** Hey, John!'' 
or '*Look this, Howajji!'* On the contrary, they 
only scowled at us and said never a word. 



206 The Innocents Abroad 

The narrow streets swarmed like a hive with men 
and women in strange Oriental costumes, and our 
small donkeys knocked them right and left as we 
plowed through them, urged on by the merciless 
donkey-boys. These persecutors run after the ani- 
mals, shouting and goading them for hours together; 
they keep the donkey in a gallop always, yet never 
get tired themselves or fall behind. The donkeys 
fell down and spilt us over their heads occasionally, 
but there was nothing for it but to mount and hurry 
on again. We were banged against sharp corners, 
loaded porters, camels, and citizens generally; and 
we were so taken up with looking out for collisions 
and casualties that we had no chance to look about 
us at alL We rode half through the city and through 
the famous ** street which is called Straight" with- 
out seeing anything, hardly. Our bones were nearly 
knocked out of joint, we were wild with excitement, 
and our sides ached with the jolting we had suffered^ 
I do not like riding in the Damascus street cars. 

We were on our way to the reputed houses of 
Judas and Ananias. About eighteen or nineteen 
hundred years ago, Saul, a native of Tarsus, was 
particularly bitter against the new sect called Chris- 
tians, and he left Jerusalem and started across the 
country on 9 furious crusade against them= He 
went forth ** breathing threatenings and slaughter 
against the disciples of the Lord," 

"And as he Journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly there 
ubined round about him a light from heaven ? 



ii 



The Innocents Abroad 207 

••And he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying unto him, '■ Saul, 
Saul, why persecutest thou me ? * 

**And when he knew that it was Jesus that spoke to him he trem- 
bled, and was astonished, and said, *Lord, what wilt thou have ma 
todo?'»» 

He was told to arise and go into the ancient city and 
one would tell him what to do. In the meantime his 
soldiers stood speechless and awe-stricken, for they 
heard the mysterious voice but saw no man, Saul 
rose up and found that that fierce supernatural light 
had destroyed his sight, and he was blind, so ** they 
led him by the hand and brought him to Damascus." 
He was converted. 

Paul lay three days blind, in the house of Judas, 
and during that time he neither ate nor drank. 

There came a voice to a citizen of Damascus, 
named Ananias, saying, ** Arise, and go into the 
street which is called Straight, and inquire at the 
house of Judas, for one called Saul, of Tarsus; for 
behold, he prayeth.** 

Ananias did not wish to go at first, for he had 
heard of Saul before, and he had his doubts about 
that style of a ** chosen vessel'* to preach the gos- 
pel of peace. However, in obedience to orders, he 
went into the ** street called Straight ** (how he ever 
found his way into it, and after he did, how he ever 
found his way out of it again, are mysteries only to 
be accounted for by the fact that he was acting under 
Divine inspiration). He found Paul and restored 
him, and ordained him a preacher; and from this 
old house we had hunted up in the street which is 

14" 



208 The Innocents Abroad 

miscalled Straight, he had started out on that bold 
missionary career which he prosecuted till his death. 

It was not the house of the disciple who sold the 
Master for thirty pieces of silver, I make this ex- 
planation in justice to Judas, who was a far different 
sort of man from the person just referred to, A 
very different style of man, and lived in a very good 
house. It is a pity we do not know more about him. 

I have given, in the above paragraphs, some more 
information for people who will not read Bible 
history until they are defrauded into it by some 
such method as this. I hope that no friend of 
progress and education will obstruct or interfere 
with my peculiar mission. 

The street called Straight is straighter than a cork- 
screw, but not as straight as a rainbow. St. Luke 
is careful not to commit himself; he does not say it 
Is the street which is straight, but the ** street which 
IS called Straight.** It is a fine piece of irony; it 
is the only facetious remark in the Bible, I believCc 
We traversed the street called Straight a good way^ 
and then turned off and called at the reputed house 
of Ananias, There is small question that a part of 
the original house is there still; it is an old room 
twelve or fifteen feet under ground, and its masonry 
Is evidently ancient. If Ananias did not live there 
in St. Paul's time, somebody else did, which is just 
as welL I took a drink out of Ananias* well, and, 
singularly enough, the water was just as fresh as if 
the well had been dug yesterday. 



The Innocents Abroad 209 

We went out toward the north end of the city to 
see the place where the disciples let Paul down over 
the Damascus wall at dead of night — for he preached 
Christ so fearlessly in Damascus that the people 
sought to kill him, just as they would to-day for the 
same offense, and he had to escape and flee to 
Jerusalem, 

Then we called at the tomb of Mahomet's children 
and at a tomb which purported to be that of St 
George who killed the dragon » and so on out to the 
hollow place under a rock where Paul hid during his 
flight till his pursuers gave him up; and to the 
mausoleum of the five thousand Christians who were 
massacred in Damascus in 1861 by the Turks. They 
say those narrow streets ran blood for several days 
and that men, women, and children were butchered 
indiscriminately and left to rot by hundreds all 
through the Christian quarter; they say, further^ 
that the stench was dreadful. All the Christians 
who could get away fled from the city, and the 
Mohammedans would not defile their hands by bury- 
ing the ** infidel dogs." The thirst for blood ex- 
tended to the high lands of Hermon and Anti-Leba- 
non, and in a shoit time twenty-five thousand more 
Christians were massacred and their possessions laid 
wastCe How they hate a Christian in Damascus ! — 
and pretty much all over Turkeydom as well. And 
how they will pay for it when Russia turns her gun? 
upon them again ! 

It is soothing to the hea^-t to abuse England and 
14»» 



210 The Innocents Abroad 

France for interposing to save the Ottoman Empire 
from the destruction it has so richly deserved for a 
thousand years. It hurts my vanity to see these 
pagans refuse to eat of food that has been cooked 
for us ; or to eat from a dish we have eaten from ; 
or to drink from a goatskin which we have polluted 
with our Christian lips, except by filtering the water 
through a rag which they put over the mouth of it 
oi through a sponge ! I never disliked a Chinaman 
as I do these degraded Turks and Arabs, and, when 
Russia is ready to war with them again, I hope Eng- 
land and France will not find it good breeding or 
good judgment to interfere. 

In Damascus they think there are no such rivers 
in all the world as their little Abana and Pharpar. 
The Damascenes have always thought that way. 
In 2 Kings, chapter v, Naaman boasts extravagantly 
about them. That was three thousand years ago. 
He says : " Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of 
Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel ? May 
I not wash in them and be clean?" But some of 
my readers have forgotten who Naaman was, long 
ago. Naaman was the commander of the Syrian 
armies. He was the favorite of the king and lived 
in great state. ''He was a mighty man of valor, 
but he was a leper." Strangely enough, the house 
they point out to you now as his has been turned 
into a leper hospital, and the inmates expose their 
horrid deformities and hold up their hands and beg 
for backsheesh when a stranger enters. 



The Innocents Abroad ^iH 

One cannot appreciate the horror of this disease 
until he looks upon it in all its ghastlinessj in Naa 
man's ancient dwelling in Damascus,. Bones all 
twisted out of shape, great knots protruding from 
face and body, joints decaying and dropping away 
— horrible ' 



CHAPTER XVIIL 

'TTIE last twenty-four hours we stayed in DamaS" 
" cus I lay prostrate with a violent attack of 
sholera, or cholera morbus, and therefore had a 
good chance and a good excuse to lie there on that 
wide divan and take an honest rest. I had nothing 
to do but listen to the pattering of the fountains and 
take medicine and throw it up again. It wa? 
dangerous recreation ^ but it was pleasanter than 
traveling in Syria, T had plenty of snow from 
Mount HermoUj and, as it would not stay on my 
stomach, there was nothing to interfere with my 
eating it — there was always room for more. I 
enjoyed myself very well. Syrian travel has its 
interesting features, like travel in any other part of 
the world, and yet to break your leg or have the 
cholera adds a welcome variety to it. 

We left Damascus at noon and rode across the 
plain a couple of hours, and then the party stopped 
a while in the shade of some fig-trees to give me a 
chance to rest. It was the hottest day we had seen 
yet — the sun-flames shot down like the shafts of fire 
that stream out before a blowpipe ; the rays seemed 



The Innocents Abroad 2 13 

to fall in a steady deluge on the head and pass down- 
ward like rain from a roof. I imagined I could dis- 
tinguish between the floods of rays — I thought I 
could tell when each flood struck my head, when it 
reached my shoulders, and when the next one came. 
It was terrible. All the desert glared so fiercely 
that my eyes were swimming in tears all the time. 
The boys had white umbrellas heavily lined with 
dark green. They were a priceless blessingo I 
thanked fortune that I had one, too, notwithstanding 
it was packed up with the baggage and was ten miles 
ahead. It is madness to travel in Syria without an 
umbrella. They told me in Beirout (these people 
who always gorge you with advice) that it was mad- 
ness to travel in Syria without an umbrella. It was 
on this account that I got one 

But, honestly, I think an umbrella is a nuisance 
anywhere when its business is to keep the sun off. 
No Arab wears a brim to his fez, or uses an umbrella, 
or anything to shade his eyes or his face, and he always 
looks comfortable and proper in the sun. But of 
all the ridiculous sights I ever have seen, our party 
of eight is the most so — they do cut such an out- 
landish figure. They travel single file ; they all wear 
the endless white rag of Constantinople wrapped 
round and round their hats and dangling down their 
backs; they all wear thick green spectacles, with 
side-glasses to them; they all hold white umbrellas, 
Hned with green, over their heads; without excep- 
tion their stirrups are too short -^ they are the very 



214 The Innocents Abroad 

worst gang of horsemen on earth ; their animals to 
a horse trot fearfully hard — and when they get 
strung out one after the other, glaring straight ahead 
and breathless ; bouncing high and out of turn, all 
along the line ; knees well up and stiff, elbows flap- 
ping like a rooster's that is going to crow, and the 
long file of umbrellas popping convulsively up and 
down — when one sees this outrageous picture ex- 
posed to the light of day, he is amazed that the gods 
don't get out their thunderbolts and destroy them 
off the face of the earth ! I do — I wonder at it. I 
wouldn't let any such caravan go through a country 
of mine. 

And when the sun drops below the horizon and 
the boys close their umbrellas and put them under 
their arms, it is only a variation of the picture, not 
a modification of its absurdity,. 

But maybe you cannot see the wild extravagance 
of my panorama. You could if you were here. 
Here, you feel all the time just as if you were living 
about the year 1200 before Christ — or back to the 
patriarchs — or forward to the New Era. The 
scenery of the Bible is about you — the customs of 
the patriarchs are around you — the same people, in 
the same flowing robes, and in sandals, cross your 
path — the same long trains of stately camels go and 
come — the same impressive religious solemnity and 
silence rest upon the desert and the mountains that 
were upon them in the remote ages of antiquity, and 
behold, intruding upon a scene like this, comes this 



The Innocents Abroad 21 S 

fantastic mob of green-spectacled Yanks, with theii 
flapping elbows and bobbing umbrellas! It is 
Daniel in the lion*s den with a green cotton umbrella 
under his arm, all over again. 

My umbrella is with the baggage, and so are my 
green spectacles — and there they shall stay. I will 
not use them. I will show some respect for the 
eternal fitness of things. It will be bad enough to 
get sunstruck, without looking ridiculous into the 
bargain. If I fall, let me fall bearing about me the 
semblance of a Christian, at least. 

Three or four hours out from Damascus we passed 
the spot where Saul was so abruptly converted, and 
from this place we looked back over the scorching 
desert, and had our last glimpse of beautiful Damas- 
cus, decked in its robes of shining green. After 
nightfall we reached our tents, just outside of the 
nasty Arab village of Jonesborough. Of course the 
real name of the place is El something or other, but 
the boys still refuse to recognize the Arab names or 
try to pronounce them. When I say that that village 
is of the usual style, I mean to insinuate that all 
Syrian villages within fifty miles of Damascus are 
alike — so much alike that it would require more 
than human intelligence to tell wherein one differed 
from another. A Syrian village is a hive of huts 
one story high (the height of a man), and as square 
as a drygoods box ; it is mud-plastered all over, flat 
roof and all, and generally whitewashed after a fash- 
ton. The same roof often extends over half the 



Zi6 ite Innocents Abroaci 

town, covering many of the streets y which are gener- 
ally about a yard wide. When you ride through one 
of these villages at noonday, you first meet a melan- 
choly dog, that looks up at you and silently begs that 
you won't run over him, but he does not offer to get 
out of the way ; next you meet a young boy without 
any clothes on, and he holds out his hand and says 
'* Bucksheesh ! *' — he don't really expect a cent, but 
then he learned to say that before he learned to say 
mother, and now he cannot break himself of it ; next 
you meet a woman with a black veil drawn closely 
over her face, and her bust exposed; finally, you 
come to several sore-eyed children and children in 
all stages of mutilation and decay; and sitting 
humbly in the dust, and all fringed with filthy 
rags, is a poor devil whose arms and legs are gnarled 
and twisted like grapevines. These are all the 
people you are likely to see. The balance of the 
population are asleep within doors, or abroad tend- 
ing goats in the plains and on the hillsides. The vil- 
lage IS built on some consumxptive little water-course, 
and about it is a little fresh-looking vegetation. Be- 
yond this charmed circle, for miles on every side, 
stretches a weary desert of sand and gravel, which 
produces a gray bunchy shrub like sage brush. A 
Syrian village is the sorriest sight in the world, and 
its surroundings are eminently in keeping with it. 

I would not have gone into this dissertation upon 
Syrian villages but for the fact that Nimrod, the 
Mighty Hunter of Scriptural notoriety, is buried in 



The innocenis Abroad 2V^ 

Jonesborough, and I wished the public to know 
about how he is located. Like Homer, he is said to 
be buried in many other places, but this is the only 
true and genuine place his ashes inhabit. 

When the original tribes were dispersed, more tiiarv 
four thousand years ago, Nimrod and a large party 
traveled three or four hundred miles, and settled 
where the great city of Babylon afterwards stood. 
Nimrod built that city. He also began to build the 
famous Tower of Babel, but circumstances over 
which he had no control put it out of his power to 
finish it. He ran it up eight stories high, however, 
and two of them still stand at this day, a colossal 
mass of brickwork, rent down the center by earth- 
quakes, and seared and vitrified by the lightnings of 
an angry God. But the vast ruin will still stand for 
ages, to shame the puny labors of these modern gen- 
erations of men. Its huge compartments are ten- 
anted by owls and lions, and old Nimrod lies neglected 
in this wretched village, far from the scene of hi? 
grand enterprise. 

We left Jonesborough very early in the morning,, 
and rode forever and forever and forever, it seemed 
to me, over parched deserts and rocky hills, hungry j 
and with no water to drink. We had drained the 
goat-skins dry in a httle while. At noon we halted 
before the wretched Arab town of El Yuba Dam- 
perched on the side of a mountain, but the dragoman 
said if we applied there for water we would be attacked 
by the whole tribe, for they did not love Christian^. 



218 The Innocents Abroad 

We had to journey on. Two hours later we reached 
the foot of a tall isolated mountain, which is crowned 
by the crumbling castle of Banias, the statehest ruin 
of that kind on earth, no doubt. It is a thousand 
feet long and two hundred wide, all of the most sym- 
metrical, and at the same time the most ponderous, 
masonry. The massive towers and bastions are more 
than thirty feet high, and have been sixty. From 
the mountain's peak its broken turrets rise above the 
groves of ancient oaks and olives, and look wonder- 
fully picturesque. It is of such high antiquity that 
no man knows who built it or when it was built. It 
is utterly inaccessible, except in one place, where a 
bridle-path winds upward among the solid rocks to 
the old portcullis. The horses* hoofs have bored 
holes in these rocks to the depth of six inches during 
the hundreds and hundreds of years that the castle 
was garrisoned. We wandered for three hours among 
the chambers and crypts and dungeons of the 
fortress, and trod where the mailed heels of many a 
knightly Crusader had rang, and where Phoenician 
heroes had walked ages before them. 

We wondered how such a solid mass of masonry 
could be affected even by an earthquake, and could 
not understand what agency had made Banias a ruin ; 
but we found the destroyer, after a while, and then 
our wonder was increased tenfold. Seeds had fallen 
in crevices in the vast walls ; the seeds had sprouted ; 
the tender, insignificant sprouts had hardened ; they 
grew larger and larger, and by a steady, impercepti- 



The Innocents Abroad 219 

ble pressure forced the great stones apart, and now 
are bringing sure destruction upon a giant work that 
has even mocked the earthquakes to scorn ! Gnarled 
and twisted trees spring from the old walls every- 
where, and beautify and overshadow the gray battle- 
ments with a wild luxuriance of foliage. 

From these old towers we looked down upon a 
broad, far-reaching green plain, glittering with the 
pools and rivulets which are the sources of the sacred 
river Jordan. It was a grateful vision, after so much 
desert. 

And as the evening drew near, we clambered down 
the mountain, through groves of the Biblical oaks of 
Bashan (for we were just stepping over the bordei 
and entering the long-sought Holy Land), and at its 
extreme foot, toward the wide valley, we entered this 
little execrable village of Banias and camped in a greai 
grove of olive trees near a torrent of sparkling water 
whose banks are arrayed in fig-trees, pomegranates, 
and oleanders in full leaf. Barring the proximity of 
the village, it is a sort of paradise. 

The very first thing one feels like doing when he 
gets into camp, all burning up and dusty, is to hunt 
up a bath. We followed the stream up to where it 
gushes out of the mountain side, three hundred yards 
from the tents, and took a bath that was so icy that 
if I did not know this was the main source of the 
sacred river, I would expect harm to come of it. It 
was bathing at noonday in the chilly source of the 
Abana, *' River of Damascus," that gave me the 



220 The Innocents Abroad 

cholera, so Dr. B. said. However, it generally 
does give me the cholera to take a bath. 

The incorrigible pilgrims have come in with their 
pockets full of specimens broken from the ruins. I 
wish this vandalism could be stopped. They broke 
off fragments from Noah's tomb ; from the exquisite 
sculptures of the temples of Baalbec; from the 
houses of Judas and Ananias, in Damascus; from 
the tomb of Nimrod the Mighty Hunter in Jones- 
borough ; from the worn Greek and Roman inscrip- 
tions set in the hoary walls of the castle of Banias ; 
and now they have been hacking and chipping these 
old arches here that Jesus looked upon in the flesh. 
Heaven protect the Sepulchre when this tribe invades 
Jerusalem ! 

The ruins here are not very interesting. There 
are the massive walls of a great square building that 
was once the citadel ; there are many ponderous old 
arches that are so smothered with debris that they 
barely project above the ground; there are heavy 
walled sewers through which the crystal brook of 
which Jordan is born still runs ; in the hillside are 
the substructions of a costly marble temple that 
Herod the Great built here - — patches of its handsome 
mosaic floors still remain ; there is a quaint old stone 
bridge that was here before Herod's time, may be; 
scattered everywhere, in the paths and in the woods, 
are Corinthian capitals, broken porphyry pillars, and 
little fragments of sculpture ; and up yonder in the 
precipice where the fountain gushes out, are well- 



The Innocents Abroad 22ii 

worn Greek inscriptions over niches in the rock where 
in ancient times the Greeks, and after them the 
Romans, worshiped the sylvan god Pan. But trees 
and bushes grow above many of these ruins nowj 
the miserable huts of a little crew of filthy Arabs 
are perched upon the broken masonry of antiquity, 
the whole place has a sleepy, stupid, rural look 
about it, and one can hardly bring himself to believe 
that a busy, substantially built city once existed here, 
even two thousand years ago. The place was never- 
theless the scene of an event whose effects have added 
page after page and volume after volume to the 
world's history. For in this place Christ stood when 
He said to Peter: 

"Thou art Peter; and upon this rock will I build my church, and 
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee 
the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind 
on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on 
earth shall be loosed in \ieaven.'* 

On these little sentences have been built up the 
mighty edifice of tht Church of Rome ; in them lie 
the authority for the imperial power of the Popes 
over temporal affairs, and their godlike power to 
curse a soul or wash it white from sin. To sustain 
the position of ** the only true Church,** which Rome 
claims was thus conferred upon her, she has fought 
and labored and struggled for many a century, and 
will continue to keep herself busy in the same work 
to the end of time. The memorable words I have 
quoted give to this ruined city about all the interest- 
it possesses to people of the present day 



222 The innocents Abroad 

It seems curious enough to us to be standing on 
ground that was once actually pressed by the feet of 
the Saviour. The situation is suggestive of a reality 
and a tangibility that seem at variance with the vague- 
ness and mystery and ghostliness that one naturally 
attaches to the character of a god. I cannot com- 
prehend yet that I am sitting where a god has stood, 
and looking upon the brook and the mountains which 
that god looked upon, and am surrounded by dusky 
men and women whose ancestors saw him, and even 
talked with him, face to face, and carelessly, just as 
they would have done with any other stranger. I 
cannot comprehend this; the gods of my under- 
standing have been always hidden in clouds and 
very far away. 

This morning, during breakfast, the usual assem- 
blage of squalid humanity sat patiently without the 
charmed circle of the camp and waited for such 
crumbs as pity might bestow upon their misery. 
There were old and young, brown-skinned and yel- 
low. Some of the men were tall and stalwart (for 
one hardly sees anywhere such splendid looking men 
as here in the East) , but all the women and children 
looked worn and sad, and distressed with hunger. 
They reminded me much of Indians, did these peo- 
ple. They had but little clothing, but such as they 
had was fanciful in character and fantastic in its 
arrangement. Any little absurd gewgaw or gim- 
crack they had they disposed in such a way as to 
make »t attract attention most readily. They sat in 



The innocents Abioad 22^ 

silence, and with tireless patience watched our every 
motion with that vile, uncomplaining impoliteness 
which is so truly Indian, and which makes a white 
man so nervous and uncomfortable and savage that 
he wants to exterminate the whole tribe. 

These people about us had other peculiarities, 
which I have noticed in the noble red man, too: 
they were infested with vermin, and the dirt had 
caked on them till it amounted to bark 

The little children were in a pitiable condition — 
they all had sore eyes, and were otherwise afflicted 
in various ways. They say that hardly a native child 
in all the East is free from sore eyes, and that thou- 
sands of them go blind of one eye or both every 
year. I think this must be so, for I see plenty of 
blind people every day, and I do not remember see- 
ing any children that hadn't sore eyes. And, would 
you suppose that an American mother could sit for 
an hour, with her child in her arms, and let a hun- 
dred flies roost upon its eyes all that time undis- 
turbed ? I see that every day. It makes my flesh 
creep. Yesterday we met a woman riding on a little 
jackass, and she had a little child in her arms; 
honestly, I thought the child had goggles on as we 
approached, and I wondered how its mother could 
afford so much style. But when we drew near, we 
saw that the goggles were nothing but a camp meet- 
ing of flies assembled around each of the child's eyes, 
and at the same time there was a detachment pros- 
pecting its nosCc The flies were happy, the child 



224 The innocents ABroad 

was contented, and so the mother did not inter- 
fere. 

As soon as the tribe found out that we had a 
doctor in our party, they began to flock in from all 
quarters. Dr. B., in the charity of his nature, had 
taken a child from a woman who sat near by, and 
put some sort of a wash upon its diseased eyes. 
That woman went off and started the whole nation, 
and it was a sight to see them swarm ! The lame, 
the halt, the blind, the leprous — all the distempers 
that are bred of indolence, dirt, and iniquity — were 
represented in the congress in ten minutes, and still 
they came ! Every woman that had a sick baby 
brought it along, and every woman that hadn't, 
borrowed one. What reverent and what worshiping 
looks they bent upon that dread, mysterious power, 
the Doctor! They watched him take his phials out; 
they watched him measure the particles of white 
powder ; they watched him add drops of one precious 
liquid, and drops of another; they lost not the 
slightest movement; their eyes were riveted upon 
him with a fascination that nothing could distract. 
I believe they thought he was gifted like a god. 
When each individual got his portion of medicine, 
his eyes were radiant with joy — notwithstanding by 
nature they are a thankless and impassive race — 
and upon his face was written the unquestioning 
faith that nothing on earth could prevent the patient 
from getting well now. 

Christ knew how to preach to these simple, 



The Innocents Abroad 225 

superstitious, disease-tortured creatures: He healed 
the sick. They flocked to our poor human doctor 
this morning when the fame of what he had done to 
the sick child went abroad in the land, and they 
worshiped him with their eyes while they did not 
know as yet whether there was virtue in his simples 
or not. The ancestors of these — -people precisely 
l:ke them in color, dress, .manners, customs, simplic- 
ity — flocked in vast multitudes after Christ, and 
when they saw Him make the afflicted whole with a 
word, it is no wonder they worshiped Him. No 
wonder His deeds were the talk of the nation. No 
wonder the multitude that followed Him v/as so 
great that at one time — - thirty miles from here — 
they had to let a sick man down through the roof 
because no approach could be made to the door; 
no wonder His audiences were so great at Galilee 
that He had to preach from a ship removed a little 
distance from the shore ; no wonder that even in the 
desert places about Bethsaida, five thousand invaded 
His solitude, and He had to feed them by a miracle 
or else see them suffer for their confiding faith and 
devotion ; no wonder when there was a great com- 
motion in a city in those days, one neighbor ex- 
plained it to another in words to this effect; ** They 
say that Jesus of Nazareth is come T' 

Well, as I was saying, the doctor distributed 

medicine as long as he had any to distribute, and 

his reputation is mighty in Galilee this day. Among 

Ms patients was the child of the Sheik's daughter •- 

1€»* 



226 The Innocents Abroad 

for even this poor, ragged handful of sores and sin 
has its royal Sheik — a poor old mummy that 
looked as if he would be more at home in a poor- 
house than in the Chief Magistracy of this tribe of 
hopeless, shirtless savages. The princess — I mean 
the Sheik's daughter — was only thirteen or fourteen 
years old, and had a very sweet face and a pretty 
one. She was the only Syrian female we have seen 
yet who was not so sinfully ugly that she couldn't 
smile after ten o'clock Saturday night without 
breaking the Sabbath. Her child was a hard speci- 
men, though — ^ there wasn't enough of it to make a 
pie, and the poor little thing looked so pleadingly 
up at all who came near it (as if it had an idea that 
now was its chance or never) that we were filled with 
compassion which was genuine and not put on. 

But this last new horse I have got is trying to 
break his neck over the tent-ropes, and I shall have 
to go out and anchor him. Jericho and I have 
parted company. The new horse is not much to 
boast of, I think. One of his hind legs bends the 
wrong way, and the other one is as straight and stiff 
as a tent-pole. Most of his teeth are gone, and he 
is as blind as a bat. His nose has been broken at 
some time or other, and is arched like a culvert 
now. His under lip hangs down like a camel's, and 
his ears are chopped off close to his head. I had 
some trouble at first to find a name for him, but I 
finally concluded to call him Baalbec, because he is 
5uch a magnificent ruin. I cannot keep from talking 



The Innocenb Abroad 227 

about my horses, because I have a very iong and 
tedious journey before me, and they naturally occupy 
my thoughts about as much as matters of apparently 
much greater importance. 

We satisfied our pilgrims by making those hard 
rides from Baalbec to Damascus, but Dan's horse 
and Jack's were so crippled we had to leave them 
behind and get fresh animals for them. The drago- 
man says Jack's horse died. I swapped horses with 
Mohammed, the kingly-looking Egyptian who is out 
Ferguson's lieutenant. By Ferguson I mean our 
dragoman Abraham, of course. I did not take this 
horse on account of his personal appearance, but 
because I have not seen his back, I do not wish to 
see it. I have seen the backs of all the other horses, 
and found most of them covered with dreadful 
saddle-boils which I know have not been washed or 
doctored for years. The idea of riding all day long 
over such ghastly inquisitions of torture is sickening,, 
My horse must be like the others, but I have at least 
the consolation of not knowing it to be so. 

I hope that in future I may be spared any more 
sentimental praises of the Arab*s idolatry of his 
horse. In boyhood I longed to be an Arab ot the 
desert and have a beautiful mare, and call her 
Selim or Benjamin or Mohammed, and feed her with 
my own hands, and let her come into the tent, and 
teach her to caress me and look fondly upon me 
with her great tender eyes; and I wished that a 
stranger might come at such a time and offer me a 



228 TTie innocents Abroad 

hundred thousand dollars for her, so that I could do 
like the other Arabs — hesitate, yearn for the money^ 
but, overcome by my love for my mare, at last say, 
" Part with thee, my beautiful one! Never with my 
life ! Away, tempter, I scorn thy gold ! ' * and then 
bound into the saddle and speed over the desert like 
the wind 1 

But I recall those aspirations^ If these Arabs 
be like the other Arabs, their love for their beautiful 
mares is a fraud. These of my acquaintance have 
no love for their horses, no sentiment of pity for 
them, and no knowledge of how to treat them or 
care for them. The Syrian saddle-blanket is a 
quilted mattress two or three inches thick. It is 
never removed from the horse, day or night. It 
gets full of dirt and hair, and becomes soaked with 
sweat. It is bound to breed sores. These pirates 
never think of washing a horse's back. They do 
not shelter the horses in the tents, either; they 
must stay out and take the weather as it comes. 
Look at poor cropped and dilapidated ** Baalbec," 
and weep for the sentiment that has been wasted 
noon the Selims of romance . 



CHAPTER XIX 

ABOUT an hour's ride over a rough, rocky road, 
half flooded with water, and through a forest 
of oaks of Bashan, brought us to Dan. 

From a Httle mound here in the plain issues a 
broad stream of limpid water and forms a large 
shallow pool, and then rushes furiously onward, 
augmented in volume. This puddle is an important 
source of the Jordan, Its banks, and those of the 
brook, are respectably adorned with blooming 
oleanders, but the unutterable beauty of the spot 
will not throw a well-balanced man into convulsions, 
as the Syrian books of travel would lead one to 
suppose^ 

From the spot I am speaking of, a cannon-ball 
would carry beyond the confines of Holy Land and 
light upon profane ground three miles away. We 
were only one little hour*s travel within the borders 
of Holy Land — we had hardly begun to appreciate 
yet that we were standing upon any different sort of 
earth than that we had always been used to, and yet 
see how the historic names began already to cluster ! 
Dan — Bashan — Lake Huleh — the Sources of Jor 

'229. 



230 The innocents Abroad 

dan — the Sea of Galilee, They were all in sight 
but the last, and it was not far away. The little 
township of Bashan was once the kingdom so famous 
in Scripture for its bulls and its oaks. Lake Huleh 
is the Biblical ** Waters of Merom/' Dan was the 
northern and Beersheba the southern limit of Pales- 
tine — hence the expression **from Dan to Beer- 
sheba.** It is equivalent to our phrases *'from 
Maine to Texas**— ** from Baltimore to San Fran- 
cisco,** Our expression and that of the Israelites 
both mean the same — great distance. With their 
slow camels and asses, it was about a seven-days 
journey from Dan to Beersheba — say a hundred 
and fifty or sixty miles -— it was the entire length of 
their country, and was not to be undertaken without 
great preparation and much ceremony. When the 
prodigal traveled to ** a far country,'* it is not likely 
that he went more than eighty or ninety miles. 
Palestine is only from forty to sixty miles wide. The 
state of Missouri could be split into three Palestines, 
and there would then be enough material left for part 
of another — possibly a whole one. From Baltimore 
to San Francisco is several thousand miles, but it 
will be only a seven-days journey in the cars when 
I am two or three years older, * If I live I shall 
necessarily have to go across the continent every 
now and then in those cars, but one journey from 
Dan to Beersheba will be sufficient, no doubt. It 



♦ The gailroad ha» been completed since the above was written. 



The Innocents Abroad 2)i 

must be the most trying of the two. . Therefore, it 
we chance to discover that from Dan to Beersheba 
seemed a mighty stretch of country to the Israelites, 
let us not be airy with them, but reflect that it was 
and zs a mighty stretch when one cannot traverse it 
by raiL 

The small mound I have mentioned a while ago 
was once occupied by the Phoenician city of Laish* 
A party of filibusters from Zorah and Eshcol cap- 
tured the place, and lived there in a free and easy 
way, worshiping gods of their own manufacture and 
stealing idols from their neighbors whenever they 
wore their own out. Jeroboam set up a golden calf 
here to fascinate his people and keep them from 
making dangerous trips to Jerusalem to worships, 
which might result in a return to their rightful 
allegiance. With all respect for those ancient Israel* 
ites, I cannot overlook the fact that they were not 
always virtuous enough to withstand the seductions 
of a golden calf. Human nature has not changed 
much since then. 

Some forty centuries ago the city of Sodom wag 
pillaged by the Arab princes cf Mesopotamia, and 
among other prisoners they seized upon the patri- 
arch Lot and brought him here on their way to their 
own possessions. They brought him to Dan, and 
father Abraham, who was pursuing them, crept 
softly in at dead of night, among the whispering 
oleanders and under the shadows of the stately oaks, 
and fell upon the slumbering victors and startled 



S832 The Innocents Abroad 

them from their dreams with the clash of steel. He 
recaptured Lot and all the other plunder. 

We moved on , We were now in a green valley, 
five or six miles wide and fifteen long. The streams 
which are called the sources of the Jordan flow 
through it to Lake Huleh, a shallow pond three miles 
in diameter, and from the southern extremity of the 
lake the concentrated Jordan flows out. The lake is 
surrounded by a broad marsh, grown with reedSo 
Between the marsh and the mountains which wall 
the valley is a respectable strip of fertile land ; at 
the end of the valley, toward Dan, as much as half 
the land is solid and fertile, and watered by Jordan's 
sources. There is enough of it to make a farm. It 
almost warrants the enthusiasm of the spies of that 
rabble of adventurers who captured Dan. They 
said; ** We have seen the land, and behold it is very 
good. » « o A place where there is no want 
of anything that is in the earth.** 

Their enthusiasm was at least warranted by the 
fact that they had never seen a country as good as 
thiSc There was enough of it for the ample support 
of their six hundred men and their families, too. 

When we got fairly down on the level part of the 
Danite farm, we came to places where we could 
actually run our horses It was a notable circum- 
stance. 

We had been painfully clambering over intermin- 
able hills and rocks for days together, and when we 
suddenly came upon this astonishing piece of rock- 



The Innocents Abroad 233 

less plain, every man drove the spurs into his horse 
and sped away with a velocity he could surely enjoy 
to the utmost, but could never hope to comprehend 
in Syria. 

Here were evidences of cultivation — a rare sight 
in this country — an acre or two of rich soil studded 
with last season's dead cornstalks of the thickness 
of your thumb and very wide apart. But in such a 
land it was a thrilling spectacle. Close to it was a 
stream, and on its banks a great herd of curious- 
looking Syrian goats and sheep were gratefully eat- 
ing graveL I do not state this as a petrified fact — 
I only suppose they were eating gravel, because there 
did not appear to be anything else for them to eatc 
The shepherds that tended them were the very pic- 
tures of Joseph and his brethren, I have no doubt in 
the world. They were tall, muscular, and very 
dark-skinned Bedouins, with inky black beards. 
They had firm lips, unquailing eyes, and a kingly 
stateliness of bearing. They wore the parti-colored 
half bonnet, half hood, w^ith fringed ends falling 
upon their shoulders, and the full, flowing robe 
barred with broad black stripes — the dress one sees 
in all pictures of the swarthy sons of the desertc 
These chaps would sell their younger brothers if they 
had a chance, I think. They have the manners, the 
customs, the dress, the occupation, and the loose 
principles of the ancient stock, [They attacked our 
camp last night, and I bear them no good will.] 
They had with them the pigmy jackasses one sees 



234 The Innocents Abroad 

all over Syria and remembers in all pictures of the 
''Flight into Egypt,'* where Mary and the Young 
Child are riding and Joseph is walking alongside, 
towering high above the little donkey's shoulders. 

But, really, here the man rides and carries the 
child, as a general thing, and the woman walks. 
The customs have not changed since Joseph's time. 
We would not have in our houses a picture repre- 
senting Joseph riding and Mary walking; we would 
see profanation in it, but a Syrian Christian would 
not. I know that hereafter the picture I first spoke 
of will look odd to me<, 

We. could not stop to rest two or three hours out 
from our camp, of course, albeit the brook was 
beside us. So we went on an hour longen We 
saw water then, but nowhere in all the waste around 
was there a foot of shade, and we were scorching to 
death. ** Like unto the shadow of a great rock in a 
weary land.** Nothing in the Bible is more beauti- 
ful than that, and surely there is no place we have 
wandered to that is able to give it such touching 
expression as this blistering, naked, treeless land. 

Here you do not stop just when you please, but 
when you can. We found water, but no shade. 
We traveled on and found a tree at last, but no 
water c We rested and lunched, and came on to this 
place, Ain Mellahah (the boys call it Baldwinsville) . 
It was a very short day's run, but the dragoman 
does not want to go further, and has invented a 
plausible lie about the country beyond this being 



The innocents Abroad 23S 

infested by ferocious Arabs, who would make sleep 
ing in their midst a dangerous pastime. Well, they 
ought to be dangerous. They carry a rusty old 
weather-beaten flintlock gun, with a barrel that is 
longer than themselves; it has no sights on it; it 
will not carry farther than a brickbat, and is not 
half so certain. And the great sash they wear in 
many a fold around their waists has two or three 
absurd old horse pistols in it that are rusty from 
eternal disuse — weapons that would hang fire just 
about long enough for you to walk out of range, 
and then burst and blow the Arab's head off. Ex- 
ceedingly dangerous these sons of the desert are. 

It used to make my blood run cold to read Wmo 
C. Grimes* hairbreadth escapes from Bedouins, but 
I think I could read them now without a tremor^ 
He never said he was attacked by Bedouins, I be- 
lieve, or was ever treated uncivilly, but then in about 
every other chapter he discovered them approach- 
ing, anyhow, and he had a blood-curdling fashion 
of working up the peril ; and of wondering how his 
relations far away would feel could they see their 
poor wandering boy, with his weary feet and his 
dim eyes, in such fearful danger; and of thinking 
for the last time of the old homestead, and the dear 
old church, and the cow, and those things; and of 
finally straightening his form to its utmost height in 
the saddle, drawing his trusty revolver, and then 
dashing the spurs into ** Mohammed " and sweep- 
ing down upon the ferocious enemy determined to 



236 The Innocents Abroad 

sell his life as dearly as possible. True, the Bedouins 
never did anything to him when he arrived, and 
never had any intention of doing anything to him in 
the first place, and wondered what in the mischief he 
was making all that to-do about; but still I could 
not divest myself of the idea, somehow, that a 
frightful peril had been escaped through that man's 
dare-devil bravery, and so I never could read about 
Wm. C. Grimes* Bedouins and sleep comfortably 
afterward. But I believe the Bedouins to be a 
fraud, now. I have seen the monster, and I can 
outrun him. I shall never be afraid of his daring to 
stand behind his own gun and discharge it. 

About fifteen hundred years before Christ, this 
campground of ours by the Waters of Merom was 
the scene of one of Joshua's exterminating battles. 
Jabin, King of Hazor (up yonder above Dan), 
called all the sheiks about him together, with their 
hosts, to make ready for Israel's terrible General 
who was approaching, 

"And when all these Kings were met together, they came and 
pitched together by the Waters of Merom, to fight against Israel. 

*'And they went out, they and all their hosts with them, much peo- 
ple, even as the sand that is upon the seashore for multitude," etc. 

But Joshua fell upon them and utterly destroyed 
them, root and branch. That was his usual policy 
in war. He never left any chance for newspaper 
controversies about who won the battle. He made 
this valley, so quiet now, a reeking slaughter-pen. 

Somewhere in this part of the country — I do not 



The innocents Abroad 237 

know exactly where — Israel fought another bloody 
battle a hundred years later, Deborah, the prophet- 
ess, told Barak to take ten thousand men and sally 
forth against another King Jabin who had been 
doing something. Barak came down from Mount 
Tabor, twenty or twenty-five miles from here, and 
gave battle to Jabin 's forces, who were in command 
of Sisera. Barak won the fight, and while he was 
making the victory complete by the usual method of 
exterminating the remnant of the defeated hostp 
Sisera fled away on foot, and when he was nearly 
exhausted by fatigue and thirst, one Jael, a woman 
he seems to have been acquainted with, invited him 
to come into her tent and rest himself. The weary 
soldier acceded readily enough, and Jael put him to 
bed. He said he was very thirsty, and asked his 
generous preserver to get him a cup of water. She 
brought him some milk, and he drank of it grate- 
fully and lay down again,, to forget in pleasant 
dreams his lost battle and his humbled pridCo 
Presently when he was asleep she came softly in 
with a hammer and drove a hideous tent-pin down 
through his brain ! 

** For he was fast asleep and weary. So he 
died." Such is the touching language of the Bible 
** The Song of Deborah and Barak ** praises Jael for 
the memorable service she had rendered, In an ex- 
ultant strain : 

** Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Hebei the Kenite be, 
Messed shall she b« above women in the tect. 



238 The Innocents Abroad 

** He asked for water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth 
butter in a lordly dish. 

" She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workman's 
Hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera, she smote off his head 
when she had pierced and stricken through his temples, 

** At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down : at her feet he bowed, 
he fell; where he bowed, there he fell down dead." 

Stirring scenes like these occur in this valley no 
more. There is not a solitary village throughout its 
whole extent • — not for thirty miles in either direc- 
tion. There are tvvo or three small clusters of 
Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habita- 
tion One may ride ten miles, hereabouts, and not 
see ten human beings^ 

To this region one of the prophecies is applied t 

-*I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies which 
dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among 
the heathen, and I will draw out a sword after you; and your land shall 
be desolate and your cities waste." 

No man can stand here by deserted Ain Mellahah 
and say the prophecy has not been fulfilled. 

In a verse from the Bible which I have quoted above^ 
occurs the phrase "all these kings." It attracted 
my attention in a moment, because it carries to my 
mind such a vastly different significance from what 
h always did at home, I can see easily enough 
that if I wish to profit by this tour and come to a 
correct understanding of the matters of interest 
connected with it^ I must studiously and faithfully 
unlearn a great many things I have somehow ab- 
sorbed concerning Palestlne= I must begin a system 



of reduction. Like my grapes which the spies bore 
out of the Promised Land, I have got everything in 
Palestine on too large a scale. Some of my ideas 
were wild enough The word Palestine always 
brought to my mind a vague suggestion of a 
country as large as the United StateSc I do not 
know why, but such was the case. I suppose it was 
because I could not conceive of a small country 
having so large a history. I think I was a little 
surprised to find that the grand Sultan of Turkey 
was a man of only ordinary sizCc I must try to 
reduce my ideas of Palestine to a more reasonable 
shape. One gets large impressions in boyhood, 
sometimes, which he has to fight against all his life 
"All these kings.** When I used to read that in 
Sunday-school, it suggested to me the several kings 
of such countries as England, France, Spain, Ger 
many, Russia, etc., arrayed in splendid robes ablaze 
with jewels, marching in grave procession, with 
scepters of gold in their hands and flashing crowns 
upon their heads But here in Ain Mellahah, after 
coming through Syria, and after giving serious study 
to the character and customs of the country, the 
phrase **all these kings** loses its grandeur. It 
suggests only a parcel of petty chiefs < — ill-clad and 
ill-conditioned savages much like our Indians, who 
lived in full sight of each other and whose *' king- 
doms" were large when they were five miles square 
and contained two thousand soulSo The combined 

monarchies of the thirty *' kings** destroyed b)^ 
16- 



240 The innocents Abroad 

Joshua on one of his famous campaigns, only cov- 
ered an area about equal to four of our counties of 
ordinary size. The poor old sheik we saw at 
Cesarea Philippic with his ragged band of a hundred 
followers^ would have been called a **king'' in 
those ancient times. 

It is seven in the morning, and as we are in the 
country, the grass ought to be sparkling with dew^ 
the flowers enriching the air with their fragrance^ 
and the birds singing in the trees. But, alas ! there 
is no dew here, nor flowers, nor birds, nor trees. 
There is a plain and an unshaded lake, and beyond 
them some barren mountainSo The tents are tum- 
bling, the Arabs are quarreling like dogs and cats, 
as usual, the campground is strewn with packages 
and bundles, the labor of packing them upon the 
backs of the mules is progressing with great activity, 
the horses are saddled, the umbrellas are out, and in 
ten minutes we shall mount and the long procession 
will move again « The white city of the Mellahahj 
resurrected for a moment out of the dead centuries, 
will have disappeared again and left x\o sign 



CHAPTER XX. 

WE traversed some miles of desolate country 
whose soil is rich enough, but is given over 
wholly to weeds — a silent, mournful expanse, 
wherein we saw only three persons — Arabs, with 
nothing on but a long coarse shirt like the ** tow- 
linen * * shirts which used to form the only summer 
garment of little negro boys on Southern planta- 
tions. Shepherds they were, and they charmed their 
flocks with the traditional shepherd's pipe — a reed 
instrument that made music as exquisitely infernal 
as these same Arabs create when they sing. 

In their pipes lingered no echo of the wonderful 
music the shepherd forefathers heard in the Plains of 
Bethlehem what time the angels sang ** Peace on 
earth, good will to men,*' 

Part of the ground we came over was not ground 
at all, but rocks — cream-colored rocks, worn 
smooth, as if by water ; with seldom an edge or a 
corner on them, but scooped out, honey-combed^ 
bored out with eye-holes, and thus wrought into all 
manner of quaint shapes, among which the uncouth 
imitation of skulls was frequent. Over this part of 

10 »» C242> 



242 The Innocents Abroad 

the route were occasional remains of an old Roman 
road like the Appian Way, whose paving stones still 
clung to their places with Roman tenacity. 

Gray lizards, those heirs of ruin, of sepulchres 
and desolation, glided in and out among the rocks 
or lay still and sunned themselves. Where pros- 
perity has reigned, and fallen; where glory has 
flamed, and gone out; where beauty has dwelt, and 
passed away; where gladness was, and sorrow is; 
where the pomp of life has been, and silence and 
death brood in its high places, there this reptile 
makes his home, and mocks at human vanity. His 
coat is the color of ashes ; and ashes are the symbol of 
hopes that have perished, of aspirations that came to 
naught, of loves that are buried. If he could speak, 
he would say. Build temples : I will lord it in their 
ruins; build palaces: I will inhabit them; erect 
empires: I will inherit them; bury your beautiful: 
I will watch the worms at their work; and you, who 
stand here and moralize over me : I will crawl over 
your corpse at the last. 

A few ants were in this desert place, but merely 
to spend the summer. They brought their provi- 
sions from Ain Mellahah — eleven miles. 

Jack is not very well to-day, it is easy to see ; but, 
boy as he is, he is too much of a man to speak of 
it. He exposed himself to the sun too much yester- 
day, but since it came of his earnest desire to learn, 
and to make this journey as useful as the oppor- 
tunities will allow, no one seeks to discourage him 



The Innocents Abroad 243 

by fault-finding. We missed him an hour from the 
camp, and then found him some distance away, by 
the edge of a brook, and with no umbrella to protect 
him from the fierce sun. If he had been used to 
going without his umbrella, it would have been well 
enough, of course ; but he was not. He was just in 
the act of throwing a clod at a mud-turtle which was 
sunning itself on a small log in the brook. We 
said: 

'* Don't do that, Jack. What do you want to 
harm him for? What has he done?" 

•* Well, then, I won't kill him, but I ought to, 
because he is a fraud." 

We asked him why, but he said it was no matter. 
We asked him why, once or twice, as we walked 
back to the camp, but he still said it was no matter. 
But late at night, when he was sitting in a thought* 
ful mood on the bed, we asked him again and he 
said: 

** Well, it don't matter; I don't mind it now, but 
I did not like it to-day, you know, because / don't 
tell anything that isn't so, and I don't think the 
Colonel ought to, either. But he did; he told us 
at prayers in the Pilgrims' tent, last night, and he 
seemed as if he was reading it out of the Bible, too, 
about this country flowing with milk and honey, and 
about the voice of the turtle being heard in the 
land, I thought that was drawing it a little strong, 
about the turtles, anyhow, but I asked Mr. Church 
if it was so, and he said it was^ and what Mr, 



244 The Innocents Abroad 

Church tells me, I believe. But I sat there and 
watched that turtle nearly an hour to-day, and I 
almost burned up in the sun ; but I never heard him 
sing. I believe I sweated a double handful of sweat 

— I hiow I did — because it got in my eyes, and it 
was running down over my nose all the time ; and 
you know my pants are tighter than anybody else's 

— Paris foolishness — and the buckskin seat of them 
got wet with sweat, and then got dry again and 
began to draw up and pinch and tear loose — it was 
awful — but I never heard him sing. Finally I said. 
This is a fraud — that is what it is, it is a fraud — 
and if I had had any sense I might have known a 
cursed mud-turtle couldn't sing. And then I said, 
I don't wish to be hard on this fellow, and I will 
just give him ten minutes to commence ; ten min- 
utes — and then if he don't, down goes his building. 
But he didnU commence, you know. I had stayed 
there all that time, thinking maybe he might, pretty 
soon, because he kept on raising his head up and 
letting it down, and drawing the skin over his eyes 
for a minute and then opening them out again, as 
<i he was trying to study up something to sing, but 
just as the ten minutes were up and I was all beat out 
and blistered, he laid his blamed head down on a 
knot and went fast asleep.** 

'* It was a little hard, after you had waited so 
long/* 

"I should think so„ I said, Well, if you won't 
sing, you shan't sleep, anyway; and if you fellows 



The Innocents Abroad 245 

had let me alone I would have made him shin out of 
Galilee quicker than any turtle ever did yet. But it 
isn't any matter now — let it go. The skin is all off 
the back of my neck." 

About ten in the morning we halted at Joseph's 
Pit. This is a ruined Khan of the Middle Ages, in 
one of whose side courts is a great walled and 
arched pit with water in it, and this pit, one tradition 
says, is the one Joseph's brethren cast him into. A 
more authentic tradition, aided by the geography 
of the country, places the pit in Dothan, some two 
days journey from here. However, since there are 
many who believe in this present pit as the true one, 
it has its interest. 

It is hard to make a choice of the most beautiful 
passage in a book which is so gemmed with beautiful 
passages as the Bible; but it is certain that not 
many things within its lids may take rank above the 
exquisite story of Joseph. Who taught those ancient 
writers their simplicity of language, their felicity of 
expression, their pathos, and, above all, their faculty 
of sinking themselves entirely out of sight of the 
reader and making the narrative stand out alone and 
seem to tell itself? Shakespeare is always present 
when one reads his book ; Macaulay is present when 
we follow the march of his stately sentences ; but 
the Old Testament writers are hidden from view. 

If the pit I have been speaking of is the right one, 
a scene transpired there, long ages ago, v/hich h 
familiar to us all in pictures. The sons of Jacob 



246 The Innocents Abroad 

had been pasturing their flocks near there. Their 
father grew uneasy at their long absence, and sent 
Joseph, his favorite, to see if anything had gone 
wrong with them. He traveled six or seven days* 
journey; he was only seventeen years old, and, boy 
like, he toiled through that long stretch of the 
vilest, rockiest, dustiest country in Asia, arrayed in 
the pride of his heart, his beautiful claw-hammer 
coat of many colors. Joseph was the favorite, and 
that was one crime in the eyes of his brethren ; he 
had dreamed dreams, and interpreted them to fore- 
shadow his elevation far above all his family in the 
far future, and that was another; he was dressed 
well and had doubtless displayed the harmless vanity 
of youth in keeping the fact prominently before his 
brothers. These were crimes his elders fretted over 
among themselves and proposed to punish when the 
opportunity should offer. When they saw him 
coming up from the Sea of Galilee, they recognized 
him and were glad. They said, ** Lo, here is this 
dreamer — let us kill him.*' But Reuben pleaded 
for his life, and they spared it. But they seized the 
boy, and stripped the hated coat from his back and 
pushed him into the pit. They intended to let him 
die there, but Reuben intended to liberate him 
secretly. However, while Reuben was away for a 
little while, the brethren sold Joseph to some Ish- 
maelitish merchants who were journeying toward 
Egypt. Such is the history of the pit. And the 
self-same pit is there in that place, even to this day; 



The Innocents Abroad 247 

and there it will remain until the next detachment of 
image-breakers and tomb-desecrators arrives from 
the Quaker City excursion, and they will infallibly 
dig it up and carry it away with them. For behold 
in them is no reverence for the solemn monuments 
of the past, and whithersoever they go they destroy 
and spare not. 

Joseph became rich, distinguished, powerful — as 
the Bible expresses it, ** lord over all the land of 
Egypt." Joseph was the real king, the strength, 
the brain of the monarchy, though Pharaoh held the 
title. Joseph is one of the truly great men of the 
Old Testament. And he was the noblest and the 
manliest, save Esau. Why shall we not say a good 
word for the princely Bedouin? The only crime 
that can be brought against him is that he was un- 
fortunate. Why must everybody praise Joseph's 
great-hearted generosity to his cruel brethren, with- 
out stint of fervent language, and fling only a 
reluctant bone of praise to Esau for his still sublimer 
generosity to the brother who had wronged him? 
Jacob took advantage of Esau's consuming hunger 
to rob him of his birthright and the great honor and 
consideration that belonged to the position; by 
treachery and falsehood he robbed him of his 
father's blessing; he made of him a stranger in his 
home, and a wanderer. Yet after twenty years had 
passed away and Jacob met Esau and fell at his feet 
quaking with fear and begging piteously to be spared 
the punishment he knew he deserved, what did that 



;248 The Innocents Abroad 

magnificent savage do ? He fell upon his neck and 
embraced him ! When Jacob — who was incapable 
of comprehending nobility of character — still doubt- 
ing, still fearing, insisted upon ** finding grace with 
my lord ' * by the bribe of a present of cattle, what 
did the gorgeous son of the desert say? 

** Nay, I have enough, my brother; keep that 
thou hast unto thyself!'* 

Esau found Jacob rich, beloved by wives and 
children, and traveling in state, with servants, herds 
of cattle and trains of camels — but he himself was 
still the uncourted outcast this brother had made 
him. After thirteen years of romantic mystery, the 
brethren who had wronged Joseph, came, strangers 
in a strange land, hungry and humble, to buy **a 
little food ' ' ; and being summoned to a palace, 
charged with crime, they beheld in its owner their 
wronged brother; they were trembling beggars — 
he, the lord of a mighty empire! What Joseph 
that ever lived would have thrown away such a 
chance to ** show off " ? Who stands first — outcast 
Esau forgiving Jacob in prosperity, or Joseph on a 
king's throne forgiving the ragged tremblers whose 
happy rascality placed him there? 

Just before we came to Joseph's Pit, we had 
•* raised " a hill, and there, a few miles before us, 
with not a tree or a shrub to interrupt the view, lay 
a vision which millions of worshipers in the far lands 
of the earth would give half their possessions to 
see — the sacred Sea of Galilee ! 



The Innocents Abroad 249 

Therefore we tarried only a short time at the pit. 
We rested the horses and ourselves, and felt for a 
few minutes the blessed shade of the ancient build- 
ings. We were out of water, but the two or three 
scowling Arabs, with their long guns, who were 
idling about the place, said they had none and that 
there was none in the vicinity. They knew there 
was a little brackish water in the pit, but they 
venerated a place made sacred by their ancestor's 
imprisonment too much to be willing to see Christian 
dogs drink from it. But Ferguson tied rags and 
handkerchiefs together till he made a rope long 
enough to lower a vessel to the bottom, and we 
drank and then rode on ; and in a short time we 
dismounted on those shores which the feet of the 
Saviour have made holy ground. 

At noon we took a swim in the Sea of Galilee — a 
blessed privilege in this roasting climate — and then 
lunched under a neglected old fig tree at the fountain 
they call Ain-et-Tin, a hundred yards from ruined 
Capernaum. Every rivulet that gurgles out of the 
rocks and sands of this part of the world is dubbed 
with the title of ** fountain," and people familiar 
with the Hudson, the Great Lakes, and the Missis- 
sippi fall into transports of admiration over them, 
and exhaust their powers of composition in writing 
their praises. If all the poetry and nonsense that 
have been discharged upon the fountains and the 
bland scenery of this region were collected in a 
book, it would make a most valuable volume to burn. 



250 The Innocents Abroad 

During luncheon, the pilgrim enthusiasts of our 
party, , who had been so Hght-hearted and happy 
ever since they touched holy ground that they did 
little but mutter incoherent rhapsodies, could scarcely 
eat, so anxious were they to ** take shipping" and 
sail in very person upon the waters that had borne 
the vessels of the Apostles. Their anxiety grew and 
their excitement augmented with every fleeting mo- 
ment, until my fears were aroused and I began to 
have misgivings that in their present condition they 
might break recklessly loose from all considerations 
of prudence and buy a whole fleet of ships to sail in 
instead of hiring a single one for an hour, as quiet 
folk are wont to do. I trembled to think of the 
ruined purses this day's performances might result 
in. I could not help reflecting bodingly upon the 
intemperate zeal with which middle-aged men are 
apt to surfeit themselves upon a seductive folly 
which they have tasted for the first timec And yet 
I did not feel that I had a right to be surprised at 
the state of things which was giving me so much con- 
cerno These men had been taught from infancy to 
revere, almost to worship, the holy places whereon 
their happy eyes were resting now. For many and 
many a year this very picture had visited their 
thoughts by day and floated through their dreams by 
night. To stand before it in the flesh — to see it as 
they saw it now — to sail upon the hallowed sea, 
and kiss the holy soil that compassed it about ; these 
were aspirations they had cherished while a genera- 



The Innocents Abroad 25i 

tion dragged its lagging seasons by and left its 
furrows in their faces and its frosts upon their hair 
To look upon this picture, and sail upon this sea^ 
they had forsaken home and its idols and journeyed 
thousands and thousands of miles, in weariness and 
tribulation. What wonder that the sordid lights of 
work-day prudence should pale before the glory of 
a hope like theirs in the full splendor of its fruition? 
Let them squander millions ! I said — who speaks 
of money at a time like this? 

In this frame of mind I followed, as fast as I 
could, the eager footsteps of the pilgrims, and stood 
upon the shore of the lake, and swelled, with hat 
and voice, the frantic hail they sent after the 
** ship ** that was speeding by. It was a success^ 
The toilers of the sea ran in and beached their bark 
Joy sat upon every countenance. 

** How much? — ask him how much, Ferguson ! — - 
how much to take us all -— eight of us, and you — to 
Bethsaida, yonder, and to the mouth of Jordan, and 
to the place where the swine ran down into the 
sea — quick! — and we want to coast around every- 
where — everywhere ! — all day long ! — / could sail 
a year in these waters ! — ~ and tell him we'll stop at 
Magdala and finish at Tiberias ! — ask him how 
much ! — anything— anything whatever ! — tell him 
we don't care what the expense is!" [I said to 
myself, I knew how it would be.] 

Ferguson — (interpreting) — ** He says two napo- 
leons — eight dollars," 



2S2 The Innocents Abroad 

One or two countenances felL Then a pause 
* Too much ! — we'll give him one I** 
I never shall know how it was — I shudder yet 
when I think hov; the place is given to miracles --=' 
but in a single instant of time, as it seemed to me, 
that ship was twenty paces from the shore, and 
speeding away like a frightened thing ! Eight crest- 
fallen creatures stood upon the shore, and oh, to 
think of it ! this — this — after all that overmaster- 
ing ecstasy ! Oh, shameful, shameful ending, after 
such unseemly boasting! It was too much like 
'*Ho! let me at him!** followed by a prudent 
**Two of you hold him- — one can hold me!** 

Instantly there was wailing and gnashing of teeth 
In the camp. The two napoleons were offered — 
more if necessary — and pilgrims and dragoman 
shouted themselves hoarse with pleadings to the 
retreating boatmen to come back. But they sailed 
serenely away and paid no further heed to pilgrims 
who had dreamed all their lives of some day skim- 
ming over the sacred waters of Galilee and listening 
to its hallowed story in the whisperings of Its waves, 
and had journeyed countless leagues to do it, and — 
and then concluded that the fare was too high. 
Impertinent Mohammedan Arabs, to think such 
things of gentlemen of another faith. 

Well, there was nothing to do but just submit and 
forego the privilege of voyaging on Gennesaret, after 
coming half around the globe to taste that pleasure. 
There was a time, when the Saviour taught here, 



The innocents Abroad 253 

that boats were plenty among the fishermen of the 
coasts — but boats and fishermen both are gone 
now ; and old Josephus had a fleet of men-of-war in 
these waters eighteen centuries ago — a hundred and 
thirty bold canoes — but they, also, have passed 
away and left no sign. They battle here no more 
by sea, and the commercial marine of Galilee num- 
bers only two small ships, just of a pattern with the 
little skiffs the disciples knew. One was lost to us 
for good — the other was miles away and far out of 
hail. So we mounted the horses and rode grimly 
on toward Magdala, cantering along in the edge of 
the water for want of the means of passing over it. 

How the pilgrims abused each other ! Each said 
it was the other's fault, and each in turn denied ito 
No word was spoken by the sinners — even the 
mildest sarcasm might have been dangerous at such 
a time. Sinners that have been kept down and had 
examples held up to them, and suffered frequent 
lectures, and been so put upon in a moral way and 
in the matter of going slow and being serious and 
bottling up slang, and so crowded in regard to the 
matter of being proper and always and forever 
behaving, that their lives have become a burden to 
them, would not lag behind pilgrims at such a time 
as this, and wink furtively, and be joyful, and com- 
mit other such crimes — because it would not occur 
to them to do it. Otherwise they would. But they 
did do it, though — and it did them a world of good 
to hear the pilgfrims abuse each other, too. We 



254 Ttit innocents Abroad 

took an unworthy satisfaction in seeing them fall 
out, now and then, because it showed that they were 
only poor human people like us, after all. 

So we all rode down to Magdala, while the gnash- 
ing of teeth waxed and waned by turns, and harsh 
words troubled the holy calm of Galilee. 

Lest any man think I mean to be ill-natured when 
I talk about our pilgrims as I have been talking, I 
wish to say in all sincerity that I do not. I would 
not listen to lectures from men I did not like and 
could not respect; and acne of these can say I ever 
took their lectures unkindly, or was restive under 
the infliction, or failed to try to profit by what they 
said to mcc They are better men than I am ; I can 
say that honestly; they are good friends of mine, 
too — and besides, if they did not wish to be stirred 
up occasionally in print, why in the mischief did 
they travel with me ? They knew me. They knew 
my liberal way — that I like to give and take-— 
when it is for me to give and other people to takCo 
When one of them threatened to leave me in 
Damascus when I had the cholera, he had no real 
idea of doing it — I know hii passionate nature and 
the good impulses that underlie it. And did I not 
overhear Church, another pilgrim, say he did not 
care who went or who stayed, Ae would stand by me 
till I walked out of Damascus on my own feet or was 
carried out in a coffin, if it was a year? And do I 
not include Church every time I abuse the pilgrims 

and would I be likely to speak ill-naturedly of 



'The Innocents Abroad 2SS 

him? I wish to stir them up and make them 
healthy ; that is all. 

We had left Capernaum behind us. It was only 
a shapeless ruin. It bore no semblance to a town, 
and had nothing about it to suggest that it had ever 
been a town. But all desolate and unpeopled as it 
was, it was illustrious ground. From it sprang that 
tree of Christianity whose broad arms overshadow 
so many distant lands to-day. After Christ was 
tempted of the devil in the desert, he came here and 
began his teachings ; and during the three or four 
years he lived afterward, this place was his home 
almost altogether. He began to heal the sick, and his 
fame soon spread so widely that sufferers came from 
Syria and beyond Jordan, and even from Jerusalem, 
several days journey away, to be cured of their dis- 
eases. Here he healed the centurion's servant and 
Peter's mother-in-law, and multitudes of the lame 
and the blind and persons possessed of devils ; and 
here, also, he raised Jairus* daughter from the dead. 
Ke went into a ship with his disciples, and when 
they roused him from sleep in the midst of a storm, 
he quieted the winds and lulled the troubled sea to 
rest with his voice. He passed over to the other 
side, a few miles away, and relieved two men of 
devils, which passed into some swine- After his 
return he called Matthew from the receipt of cus- 
toms, performed some cures, and created scandal 
by eating with publicans and sinners. Then he went 
healing and teaching through Galilee, and even 



256 The Innocents Abroad 

journeyed to Tyre and Sidon. He chose the twelve 
Jisciples, and sent them abroad to preach the new 
gospel. He worked miracles in Bethsaida and 
Chorazin — villages two or three miles from Caper- 
naum. It was near one of them that the miraculous 
draft of fishes is supposed to have been taken, and 
it was in the desert places near the other that he fed 
the thousands by the miracles of the loaves and 
fishes. He cursed them both, and Capernaum also, 
for not repenting, after all the great works he had 
done in their midst, and prophesied against them. 
They are all in ruins now— which is gratifying to 
the pilgrims, for, as usual, they fit the eternal words 
of gods to the evanescent things of this earth; 
Christ, it is more probable, referred to the peophy 
not their shabby villages of wigwams; he said it 
would be sad for them at ** the Day of Judgment "— 
and what business have mud-hovels at the Day of 
Judgment? it would not affect the prophecy in the 
least — it would neither prove it nor disprove it — if 
these towns were splendid cities now instead of the 
almost vanished ruins they are. Christ visited Mag- 
dala, which is near by Capernaum, and he also 
visited Cesarea Phllippi. He went up to his old 
home at Nazareth, and saw his brothers Joses^ and 
Judas, and James, and Simon — those persons who, 
being own brothers to Jesus Christ, one would ex- 
pect to hear mentioned sometimes, yet who ever saw 
their names in a newspaper or heard them from a 
pulpit? Who ever inquires what manner of youths 



The Innocents Abroad 25/ 

t'hey were; and whether they slept with Jesus, 
played with him and romped about him ; quarreled 
with him concerning toys and trifles ; struck him in 
anger, not suspecting what he was? Who ever 
wonders what they thought when they saw him 
come back to Nazareth a celebrity, and looked long 
at his unfamiliar face to make sure, and then said, 
** It is Jesus?" Who wonders what passed in their 
minds when they saw this brother (who was 07ily a 
brother to them, however much he might be to 
others a mysterious stranger who was a god and had 
stood face to face with God above the clouds) doing 
strange miracles with crowds of astonished people 
for witnesses? Who wonders if the brothers of 
Jesus asked him to come home with them, and said 
his mother and his sisters were grieved at his long 
absence, and would be wild with delight to see his 
face again? Who ever gives a thought to the sisters 
of Jesus at all ? — yet he had sisters ; and memories 
of them must have stolen into his mind often when 
he was ill-treated among strangers; when he was 
homeless and said he had not where to lay his head ; 
when all deserted him, even Peter, and he stood 
alone among his enemies. 

Christ did few miracles in Nazareth, and stayed 
but a little while. The people said, ** This the Son 
of God ! Why, his father is, nothing but a car- 
penter. We know the family. We see them every 
day. Are not his brothers named so and so, and his 
sisters so and so, and is not his mother the person 
17 •• 



258 The Innocents Atnoad 

tJiey call Mary? This Is absurd." He did not 
curse his home, but he shook its dust from his feet 
and went away. 

Capernaum lies close to the edge of the little sea, 
In a small plain some five miles long and a mile or 
two wide, which is mildly adorned with oleanders 
which look all the better contrasted with the bald 
hills and the howling deserts which surround them, 
but they are not as deliriously beautiful as the books 
paint them. If one be calm and resolute he can 
look upon their comeliness and live. 

One of the most astonishing things that have yet 
fallen under our observation is the exceedingly small 
portion of the earth from which sprang the now 
flourishing plant of Christianity. The longest jour- 
ney our Saviour ever performed was from here to 
Jerusalem — about one hundred to one hundred and 
twenty miles. The next longest was from here to 
Sidon — say about sixty or seventy miles. Instead 
of being wide apart — as American appreciation of 
distances would naturally suggest — the places made 
most particularly celebrated by the presence of 
Christ are nearly all right here in full view, and 
within cannon-shot of Capernaum. Leaving out 
two or three short journeys of the Saviour, he spent 
his life, preached his gospel, and performed his 
miracles within a compass no larger than an ordinary 
county in the United States. It is as much as I can 
do to comprehend this stupefying fact. How it 
wears a man out to have to read up a hundred pages 



The Innocents Abroad 259 

of history every two or three miles — for verily the 
celebrated localities of Palestine occur that close 
together. How wearily, how bewilderingly they 
swarm about your path ! 

In due time we reached the ancient village of 
Magdala. 



CHAPTER XXL 

MAGDALA is not a beautiful place. It is thor- 
oughly Syrian, and that is to say that it is 
thoroughly ugly, and cramped, squalid, uncomfort- 
able, and filthy — just the style of cities that have 
adorned the country since Adam's time, as all 
writers have labored hard to prove, and have suc- 
ceeded. The streets of Magdala are anywhere from 
three to six feet wide, and reeking with uncleanli- 
ness. The houses are from five to seven feet high, 
and all built upon one arbitrary plan — the ungrace- 
ful form of a drygoods box. The sides are daubed 
with a smooth white plaster, and tastefully frescoed 
aloft and alow with disks of camel-dung placed there 
to dry. This gives the edifice the romantic appear- 
ance of having been riddled with cannon-balls, and 
imparts to it a very warlike aspect. When the 
artist has arranged his materials with an eye to just 
proportion — the small and the large flakes in alter- 
nate rows, and separated by carefully-considered 
intervals — I know of nothing more cheerful to look 
upon than a spirited Syrian fresco. The flat, plas- 
tered roof is garnished by picturesque stacks of 

(26o^ 



The Innocents Abroad 261 

fresco materials, which, having become thoroughly 
dried and cured, are placed there where it will be 
convenient. It is used for fuel. There is no timber 
of any consequence in Palestine — none at all to 
waste upon fires — and neither are there any mines 
of coal. If my description has been intelligible, 
you will perceive, now, that a square, fiat-roofed 
hovel, neatly frescoed, with its wall-tops gallantly 
bastioned and turreted with dried camel-refuse, gives 
to a landscape a feature that is exceedingly festive 
and picturesque, especially if one is careful to re- 
member to stick in a cat wherever, about the 
premises, there is room for a cat to sit. There are 
no windows to a Syrian hut, and no chimneys. 
When I used to read that they let a bedridden man 
down through the roof of a house in Capernaimi to 
get him into the presence of the Saviour, I generally 
had a three-story brick in my mind, and marveled 
that they did not break his neck with the strange 
experiment. I perceive now, however, that they 
might have taken him by the heels and thrown him 
clear over the house without discommoding him 
very much. Palestine is not changed any since 
those days, in manners, customs, architecture, or 
people. 

As we rode into Magdala not a soul was visible. 
But the ring of the horses' hoofs roused the stupid 
population, and they all came trooping out — old 
men and old women, boys and girls, the blind, the 
crazy, and the crippled, all in ragged, soiled, and 



262 The Innocents Abroad 

scanty raiment, and all abject beggars by nature, in- 
stinct, and education. How the vermin-tortured vag- 
abonds did swarm ! How they showed their scars 
and sores, and piteously pointed to their maimed and 
crooked limbs, and begged with their pleading eyes 
for charity ! We had invoked a spirit we could not 
lay. They hung to the horses* tails, clung to their 
manes and the stirrups, closed in on every side in 
scorn of dangerous hoofs — and out of their infidel 
throats, with one accord, burst an agonizing and 
most infernal chorus : *' Howajji, bucksheesh ! 
howajji, bucksheesh ! liowajji, bucksheesh ! buck- 
sheesh ! bucksheesh ! *' I never was in a storm like 
that before. 

As we paid the bucksheesh out to sore-eyed 
children and brown, buxom girls with repulsively 
tattooed lips and chins, we filed through the town 
and by many an exquisite fresco, till we came to a 
bramble-infested inclosure and a Roman looking ruin 
which had been the veritable dwelling of St. Mary 
Magdalene, the friend and follower of Jesus. The 
guide believed it, and so did L I could not well do 
otherwise, with the house right there before my eyes 
as plain as day. The pilgrims took down portions 
of the front wall for specimens, as is their honored 
custom, and then we departed. 

We are camped in this place, now, just within the 
city walls of Tiberias. We went into the town be- 
fore nightfall and looked at its people — we cared 
nothing about its houses Its people are best ex- 



The innocents Abroad 263 

amined at a distance. They are particularly un- 
comely Jews, Arabs, and negroes. Squalor and 
poverty are the pride of Tiberias. The young 
women wear their dower strung upon a strong wire 
that curves downward from the top of the head to 
the jaw — Turkish silver coins which they have raked 
together or inherited. Most of these maidens were 
not wealthy, but some few had been very kindly 
dealt with by fortune^ I saw heiresses there worth, 
in their own right — worth, well, I suppose I might 
venture to say, as much as nine dollars and a half. 
But such cases are rare. When you come across one 
of these, she naturally puts on airs. She will not 
ask for backsheesh. She will not even permit of 
undue familiarity. She assumes a crushing dignity 
and goes on serenely practicing with her fine-tooth 
comb and quoting poetry just the same as if you 
were not present at all. Some people cannot stand 
prosperity 

They say that the long-nosed, lanky, dyspeptic- 
looking body-snatchers^ with the indescribable hats 
on, and a long curl dangling down in front of each 
ear, are the old, familiar, self-righteous Pharisees we 
read of in the Scriptures. Verily, they look it- 
Judging merely by their general style, and without 
other evidence, one might easily suspect that self- 
righteousness was their specialty. 

From various authorities I have culled information 
concerning Tiberias. It was built by Herod Antipas, 
the murderer of John the Baptist, and named after 



264 The Innocents Abroad 

the Emperor Tiberius. It is believed that it stands 
upon the site of what must have been, ages ago, a city 
of considerable architectural pretensions, judging by 
the fine porphyry pillars that are scattered through 
Tiberias and down the lake shore southward. These 
were fluted once, and yet, although the stone is 
about as hard as iron, the flutings are almost worn 
away. These pillars are small, and doubtless the 
edifices they adorned were distinguished more for 
elegance than grandeur. This modern town — 
Tiberias — is only mentioned in the New Testament ; 
never in the Old, 

The Sanhedrim met here last, and for three hun- 
dred years Tiberias was the metropolis of the Jews 
in Palestine. It is one of the four holy cities of the 
Israelites, and is to them what Mecca is to the 
Mohammedan and Jerusalem to the Christian. It 
has been the abiding place of many learned and 
famous Jewish rabbins. They lie buried here, and 
near them lie also twenty-five thousand of their faith 
who traveled far to be near them while they lived and 
lie with them when they died. The great Rabbi Ben 
Israel spent three years here in the early part of the 
third century. He is dead, now. 

The celebrated Sea of Galilee is not so large a sea 
as Lake Tahoe* by a good deal — it is just about 

* I measure all lakes by Tahoe, partly because I am far more 
familiar with it than with any other, and partly because I have such a 
high admiration for it and such a world of pleasant recollections of it, 
that it is very nearly impossible for me to speak of lakes and not men« 
Uon it. 



The Innocents Abroad 26S 

two-thirds as large- And when we come to speak 
of beauty, this sea is no more to be compared to 
Tahoe than a meridian of longitude is to a rainbow. 
The dim waters of this pool cannot suggest the limpid 
brilliancy of Tahoe; these low, shaven, yellow hil- 
locks of rocks and sand, so devoid of perspective, 
cannot suggest the grand peaks that compass Tahoe 
like a wall, and whose ribbed and chasmed fronts are 
clad with stately pines that seem to grow small 
and smaller as they climb, till one might fancy them 
reduced to weeds and shrubs far upward, where they 
join the everlasting snows. Silence and solitude 
brood over Tahoe; and silence and solitude brood 
also over this lake of Gennesaret. But the solitude 
of the one is as cheerful and fascinating as the soli- 
tude of the other is dismal and repellent. 

In the early morning one watches the silent battle 
of dawn and darkness upon the waters of Tahoe 
with a placid interest; but when the shadows sulk 
away and one by one the hidden beauties of the 
shore unfold themselves in the full splendor of 
noon ; when the still surface is belted like a rainbow 
with broad bars of blue and green and white, half 
the distance from circumference to center; when, in 
the lazy summer afternoon, he lies in a boat, far out 
to where the dead blue of the deep water begins, 
and smokes the pipe of peace and idly winks at the 
distant crags and patches of snow from under his 
cap-brim; when the boat drifts shoreward to the 
white water J and he lolls over the gunwale and gaze& 



266 The Innocents Abroad 

by the hour down through the crystal depths and 
notes the colors of the pebbles and reviews the finny 
armies gliding in procession a hundred feet below ; 
when at night he sees moon and stars, mountain 
ridges feathered with pines, jutting white capes, bold 
promontories, grand sweeps of rugged scenery 
topped with bald, glimmering peaks, all magnifi- 
cently pictured in the polished mirror of the lake, 
in richest, softest detail, the tranquil interest that 
was born with the morning deepens and deepens, by 
sure degrees, till it culminates at last in resistless 
fascination ! 

It is solitude, for birds and squirrels on the shore 
and fishes in the water are all the creatures that are 
near to make it otherwise, but it is not the sort of 
solitude to make one drearyo Come to Galilee for 
that. If these unpeopled deserts, these rusty mounds 
of barrenness, that never, never, never do shake the 
glare from their harsh outlines, and fade and faint 
into vague perspective; that melancholy ruin of 
Capernaum ; this stupid village of Tiberias, slumber- 
ing under its six funereal plumes of palms ; yonder 
desolate declivity where the swine of the miracle 
ran down into the sea, and doubtless thought it was 
better to swallow a devil or two and get drowned into 
the bargain than have to live longer in such a place ; 
this cloudless, blistering sky; this solemn, sailless, 
tintless lake, reposing within its rim of yellow hills 
and low, steep banks^ and looking just as expression- 
less and unpoetical (when we leave its sublime history 



The Innocents Abroad 26; 

out of the question), as any metropolitan reservoiif 
in Christendom — if these things are not food for 
rock me to sleep, mother, none exist, I think. 

But I should not offer the evidence for the prosecu- 
tion and leave the defense unheard, Wm C. Grimes 
deposes as follows: 

** We had taken ship to go over to the other side. The sea was not 
more than six miles wide. Of the beauty of the scene, however, I can 
not say enough, nor can I imagine where those travelers carried theit 
eyes who have described the scenery of the lake as tame or uninteresting. 
The first great characteristic of it is the deep basin in which it liesr 
This is from three to four hundred feet deep on all sides except at the 
lower end, and the sharp slope of the banks, which are all of the richest 
green, is broken and diversified by the wddys and water-courses which 
work their way down through the sides of the basin, forming dark 
chasms or light sunny valleys. Near Tiberias these banks are rockyg 
and ancient sepulchres open in them, with their doors toward the water. 
They selected grand spots, as did the Egyptians of old, for burial places, 
as if they designed that when the voice of God should reach the sleepers 
they should walk forth and open their eyes on scenes of glorious beauty. 
On the east, the wild and desolate mountains contrast finely with the 
deep blue lake; and toward the north, sublime and majestic, Hermon 
looks down on the sea, lifting his white crown to heaven with the pride 
of a hill that has seen the departing footsteps of a hundred generations. 
On the northeast shore of the sea was a single tree, and this is the 
only tree of any size visible from the water of the lake, except a few 
lonely palms in the city of Tiberias, and by its solitary position attracts 
more attention than would a forest. The whole appearance of the 
scene is precisely what we would expect and desire the scenery of 
Gennesaret to be, grand beauty, but quiet calm. The very mountains 
are calm." 

It is an ingeniously written description, and well 
calculated to deceive. But if the paint and the rib- 
bons and the flowers be stripped from it, a skeleton 
will be found beneath. 



268 The Innocents Abroad 

So stripped, there remains a lake six miles wide 
and neutral in color; with steep green banks, unre- 
lieved by shrubbery; at one end bare, unsightly 
rocks, with (almost invisible) holes in them of no 
consequence to the picture; eastward, "wild and 
desolate mountains" (low, desolate hills, he should 
have said) ; in the north, a mountain called Hermon, 
with snow on it; peculiarity of the picture, "calm- 
ness"; its prominent feature, one tree. 

No ingenuity could make such a picttire beautiful 
— to one's actual vision. 

I claim the right to correct misstatements, and have 
so corrected the color of the water in the above re- 
capitulation. The waters of Gennesaret are of an 
exceedingly mild blue, even from a high elevation 
and a distance of five miles. Close at hand (the wit- 
ness was sailing on the lake), it is hardly proper to 
call them blue at all, much less "deep" blue. I 
wish to state, also, not as a correction, but as a mat- 
ter of opinion, that Moimt Hermon is not a strik- 
ing or picturesque mountain, by any means, being 
too near the height of its immediate neighbors to be 
so. That is all. I do not object to the witness 
dragging a mountain forty-five miles to help the 
scenery tmder consideration, because it is entirely 
proper to do it, and, besides, the picture needs it. 

"C. W. E." (of "Life in the Holy Land"), de- 
poses as follows: 

" A beautiful sea lies unbosomed among the Galilean hills, in tlie 
midst of that land once possessed by Zebulon and Naphtali, Asher and 



The Innocents Abroad 269 

Dan. The azure of the sky penetrates the depths ot the lake, and the 
waters are sweet and cool. On the west, stretch broad fertile plains? 
on the north the rocky shores rise step by step until in the far distance 
tower the snowy heights of Hermon; on the east through a misty veil 
are seen the high plains of Perea, which stretch away in rugged moun 
';ains leading the mind by varied paths toward Jerusalem the Holy,. 
Flowers bloom in this terrestrial paradise, once beautiful and verdant 
with waving trees; singing birds enchant the ear; the turtle-dove soothes 
with its soft note; the crested lark sends up its song toward heaven, and 
the grave and stately stork inspires the mind with thought, and leads it 
on to meditation and repose. Life here was once idyllic, charmingi 
here were once no rich, no poor, no high, no low. It was a world o! 
ease, simphcity, and beauty; now it is a scene of desolation and misery." 

This is not an ingenious picture,, It is the worst 
I ever saw. It describes in elaborate detail what it 
terms a ** terrestrial paradise/* and closes with the 
startling information that this paradise is * * a scene 
of desolation and misery ^'^ 

I have given two fair, average specimens of the 
character of the testimony offered by the majority of 
the writers who visit this region. One says, '* Of 
the beauty of the scene I cannot say enough/' and 
then proceeds to cover up with a woof of glittering 
sentences a thing which, when stripped for inspections, 
proves to be only an unobtrusive basin of water, 
some mountainous desolation, and one tree. The 
other, after a conscientious effort to build a terrestrial 
paradise out of the same materials, with the addition 
of a ** grave and stately stork,** spoils it all by 
blundering upon the ghastly truth at the last. 

Nearly every book concerning Galilee and its lake 
describes the scenery as beautiful. No — not always 
so straightforward as that. Sometimes the impres 



270 The Innocents Abroad 

stou intentionally conveyed is that it is beautiful, at 
the same time that the author is careful not to say 
that it is^ in plain Saxon. But a careful analysis of 
these descriptions will show that the materials of 
which they are formed are not individually beautiful 
and cannot be wrought into combinations that are 
beautiful. The veneration and the affection which 
some of these men felt for the scenes they were 
speaking of heated their fancies and biased their 
judgment ; but the pleasant falsities they wrote were 
full of honest sincerity, at any rate. Others wrote 
as they did, because they feared it would be unpop- 
ular to write otherwise. Others were hypocrites and 
deliberately meant to deceive. Any of them would 
say in a moment, if asked, that it was always right 
and always best to tell the truth. They would say 
that, at any rate, if they did not perceive the drift of 
the question. 

But why should not the truth be spoken of this 
region ? Is the truth harmful ? Has it ever needed 
to hide its face? God made the Sea of Galilee and 
its surroundings as they are. Is it the province of 
Mr. Grimes to improve upon the work? 

I am sure, from the tenor of books I have read, 
that many who have visited this land in years gone 
by, were Presbyterians, and came seeking evidences 
in support of their particular creed ; they found a 
Presbyterian Palestine, and they had already made 
up their minds to find no other, though possibly 
they did not know Jt, being blinded by their zeal 



The Innocents Abroad 271 

Others were Baptists, seeking Baptist evidences and 
a Baptist Palestine. Others were Catholics, Metho • 
dists, Episcopalians, seeking evidences indorsing their 
several creeds, and a Catholic, a Methodist, an 
Episcopalian Palestine. Honest as these men*s in- 
tentions may have been, they were full of partialities 
and prejudices, they entered the country with their 
verdicts already prepared, and they could no more 
write dispassionately and impartially about it than 
they could about their own wives and children. 
Our pilgrims have brought their verdicts with them. 
They have shown it in their conversation ever since 
we left Beirout. I can almost tell, in set phrase, 
what they will say when they see Tabor, Nazareth, 
Jericho, and Jerusalem — because I have the books 
they will ^^smouch ** their ideas from. These author? 
write pictures and frame rhapsodies, and lesser men 
follow and see with the author's eyes instead of their 
own, and speak with his tongue. What the pilgrims 
said at Cesarea Philippi surprised me with its wisdom. 
I found it afterwards in Robinson. What they said 
when Gennesaret burst upon their vision charmed 
me with its grace. I find it in Mr, Thompson's 
"* Land and the Book.*' They have spoken often, in 
happily- worded language which never varied, of how 
they mean to lay their weary heads upon a stone at 
Bethel, as Jacob did, and close their dim ej^es, and 
dream, perchance, of angels descending out ot 
heaven on a ladder It was very pretty. But I. 
have recognized the weary head and the dim eyes. 

i8*' 



272 The ^nocents Abroad 

finally They borrowed the idea — -and the wordK 
— and the construction- — and the punctuation — 
from Grimes, The pilgrims will tell of Palestine^ 
when they get home, not as it appeared to f/iem, but 
as it appeared to Thompson and Robinson and 
Grimes — with the tints varied to suit each pilgrim's 
creed. 

Pilgrims, sinners, and Arabs are all abed, now, and 
the camp is still. Labor in loneliness is irksomec 
Since I made my last few notes, I have been sitting 
outside the tent for half an hour. Night is the time 
to see Galilee. Gennesaret under these lustrous stars 
has nothing repulsive about it. Gennesaret with the 
glittering reflections of the constellations flecking its 
surface, almost makes me regret that I ever sav/ the 
rude glare of the day upon it. Its history and its 
associations are its chiefest charm, in any eyes, and 
the spells they weave are feeble in the searching light 
of the sun, T/ien, we scarcely feel the fetterSc Our 
thoughts wander constantly to the practical concerns 
of life, and refuse to dwell upon things that seem 
vague and unreal. But when the day is done, even 
the most unimpressible must yield to the dreamy in- 
fluences of this tranquil starlight. The old traditions 
of the place steal upon his memory and haunt his 
reveries, and then his fancy clothes all sights and 
sounds with the supernaturaL In the lapping of the 
waves upon the beach, he hears the dip of ghostly 
oars ; in the secret noises of the night he hears spirit 
^roicesf in the soft sweep of the breeze, the rush of 



I 



The innocents Abroad 273 

invisible wings. Phantom ships are on the sea, the 
dead of twenty centuries come forth from the tombsj 
and in the dirges of the night wind the songs of old 
forgotten ages find utterance again. 

In the starlight, Galilee has no boundaries but the 
broad compass of the heavens, and is a theater meet 
for great events ; meet for the birth of a religion able 
to save a world ; and meet for the stately Figure ap- 
pointed to stand upon its stage and proclaim its high 
decrees. But in the sunlights one says: Is it for 
the deeds which were done and the words which 
were spoken in this little acre of rocks and sand 
eighteen centuries gone, that the bells are ringing 
to-day in the remote islands of the sea and far and 
wide over continents that clasp the circumference of 
the huge globe? 

One can comprehend it only when night has hidden 
all incongruities and created a theater proper for so 



l8- 



CHAPTER XXII. 

WE took another swim in the Sea of Galilee at 
twilight yesterday, and another at sunrise this 
morning. We have not sailed, but three swims are 
equal to a sail, are they not? There were plenty of 
fish visible in the water, but we have no outside aids 
in this pilgrimage but **Tent Life in the Holy 
Land," "The Land and the Book," and other 
literature of like description — no fishing tackle. 
There were no fish to be had in the village of 
Tiberias. True, we saw two or three vagabonds 
mending their nets, but never trying to catch any- 
thing with them. 

We did not go to the ancient warm baths two 
miles below Tiberias. I had no desire in the world 
to go there. This seemed a little strange, and 
prompted me to try to discover what the cause of 
this unreasonable indifference was. It turned out 
to be simply because Pliny mentions them I have 
conceived a sort of unwarrantable unfriendliness 
toward Pliny and St. Paul, because it seems as if I 
can never ferret out a place that I can have to my- 
^11. It always and eternally transpires that St. Paul 

( 35-4 / 



The Innocents Abroad 275 

has been to that place, and Pliny has ** mentioned ** 
it 

In the early morning we mounted and started. 
And then a weird apparition marched forth at the 
head of the procession — a pirate, I thought, if ever 
a pirate dwelt upon land. It was a tall Arab, as 
swarthy as an Indian, young — say thirty years of 
age. On his head he had closely bound a gorgeous 
yellow and red striped silk scarf, whose ends, lavishly 
fringed with tassels, hung down between his shoul- 
ders and dalfied with the wind. From his neck to 
his knees, in ample folds, a robe swept down that 
was a very star-spangled banner of curved and 
sinuous bars of black and white. Out of his back, 
somewhere, apparently, the long stem of a chibouk 
projected, and reached far above his right shoulder. 
Athwart his back, diagonally, and extending high 
above his left shoulder, was an Arab gun of Saladin's 
time, that was splendid with silver plating from stock 
Hear up to the end of its measureless stretch of bar- 
rel About his waist was bound many and many a 
yard of elaborately figured but sadly tarnished stuff 
that came from sumptuous Persia, and among the 
baggy folds in front the sunbeams glinted from a 
formidable battery of old brass-mounted horse pistols 
and the gilded hilts of bloodthirsty knives. There 
were holsters for more pistols appended to the 
wonderful stack of long-haired goat-skins and Persian 
carpets, which the man had been taught to regard 
m the light of a saddle ; and down among the pen- 



276 The innocenb Abroad 

dulous rank of vast tassels that swung from that sac 
die, and clanging against the iron shovel of a stirruf 
that propped the warrior's knees up toward his chin- 
was a crooked, silver-clad scimetar of such awfu! 
dimensions and such implacable expression that no 
man might hope to look upon it and not shudder. 
The fringed and bedizened prince whose privilege it 
is to ride the pony and lead the elephant into a 
country village is poor and naked compared to this 
chaos of paraphernalia, and the happy vanity of the 
one is the very poverty of satisfaction compared to 
the majestic serenity, the O'li^erwhelming complacency 
of the othere 

•• V//i(? is this? W/ia^ is this?" That was the 
trembling inquiry all down the line. 

** Our guard! From Galilee to the birthplace of 
the Saviour, the country is infested with fierce 
Bedouins, whose sole happiness it is, in this life, to 
cut and stab and mangle and murder unoffending 
Christians, Allah be with us! '* 

** Then hire a regiment! Would you send us out 
among these desperate hordes, with no salvation in 
our utmost need but this old turret? '* 

The dragoman laughed— not at the facetiousness of 
the simile, for verily, that guide or that courier or 
that dragoman never yet lived upon earth who had 
in him the faintest appreciation of a joke, even 
though that joke were so broad and so ponderous 
that if it fell on him it would flatten him out like a 
postage-stamp — the dragoman laughed, and then. 



The Innocents Abroad 277 

emboldened by some thought that was in his braiii^ 
no doubt, proceeded to extremities and winked. 

In straits like these, when a man laughs, it is en- 
couraging; when he winks, it is positively reassuring. 
He finally intimated that one guard would be suffi 
cient to protect us, but that that one was an absolute 
necessity. It was because of the moral weight his 
awful panoply would have with the Bedouins. Then 
I said we didn't want any guard at all. If one fan- 
tastic vagabond could protect eight armed Christians 
and a pack of Arab servants from all harm, surely 
that detachment could protect themselves. He 
shook his head doubtfully. Then I said, just think 
of how it looks — think of how it would read, to self- 
reliant Americans, that we went sneaking through 
this deserted wilderness under the protection of this 
masquerading Arab, who would break his neck get- 
ting out of the country if a man that was a m.an ever 
started after him. It was a mean, low, degrading 
position. Why were we ever told to bring navy re- 
volvers with us if we had to be protected at last by 
this infamous star-spangled scum of the desert? 
These appeals v/ere vain — the dragoman only 
smiled and shook his head. 

I rode to the front and struck up an acquaintance 
with King Solomon-in-all-his-g]ory, and got him to 
show me his lingering eternity of a gun. It had a 
rusty flint lock ; it was ringed and barred and plated 
with silver from end to end, but it was as desperately 
out of the perpendicular as are the billiard cues of 



278 The Innocents Abroad 

'49 that one finds yet in service in the ancient mining 
camps of California. The muzzle was eaten by the 
rust of centuries into a ragged filigree-work, like 
the end of a burnt-out stovepipe. I shut one eye 
and peered within — it was flaked with iron rust like 
an old steamboat boiler. I borrowed the ponderous 
pistols and snapped them. They were rusty inside, 
too — had not been loaded for a generation. I went 
back, full of encouragement, and reported to the 
guide, and asked him to discharge this dismantled 
fortress. It came out, then. This fellow was a 
retainer of the Sheik of Tiberias. He was a source 
of Government revenue. He was to the Empire of 
Tiberias what the customs are to America. The 
Sheik imposed guards upon travelers and charged 
them for it. It is a lucrative source of emolument, 
and sometimes brings into the national treasury as 
much as thirty-five or forty dollars a year.. 

I knew the warrior's secret now ; I knew the hol- 
low vanity of his rusty trumpery, and despised his 
asinine complacency. I told on him, and with reck- 
less daring the cavalcade rode straight ahead into the 
perilous solitudes of the desert, and scorned his 
frantic warnings of the mutilation and death that 
hovered about them on every side. 

Arrived at an elevation of twelve hundred feet 
above the lake (I ought to mention that the lake lies 
six hundred feet below the level of the Mediter- 
ranean — no traveler ever neglects to flourish that 
fragment of news in his letters), as bald and un- 



The Innocents Abroad 279 

thrilling a panorama as any land can afford, perhaps, 
was spread out before us. Yet it was so crowded 
with historical interest, that if all the pages that have 
been written about it were spread upon its surface, 
they would flag it from horizon to horizon like a 
pavement. Among the localities comprised in this 
view, were Mount Hermon; the hills that border 
Cesarea Philippi, Dan, the Sources of the Jordan 
and the Waters of Merom; Tiberias; the Sea of 
Galilee; Joseph's Pit; Capernaum; Bethsaida; the 
supposed scenes of the Sermon on the Mount, the 
feeding of the multitudes and the miraculous draught 
of fishes ; the declivity down which the swine ran to 
the sea ; the entrance and the exit of the Jordan ; 
Safed, ** the city set upon a hill," one of the four 
holy cities of the Jews, and the place where they 
believe the real Messiah will appear when he comes 
to redeem the world; part of the battlefield of 
Hattin, where the knightly Crusaders fought their 
last fight, and in a blaze of glory passed from the 
stage and ended their splendid career forever; 
Mount Tabor, the traditional scene of the Lord's 
Transfiguration. And down toward the southeast lay 
a landscape that suggested to my mind a quotation 
(imperfectly remembered, no doubt) : 

"The Ephraimites, not being called upon to share in the rich spoils 
of the Ammonitish war, assembled a mighty host to fight against Jeptha, 
Judge of Israel; who being apprised of their approach, gathered to- 
gether the men of Israel and gave them battle and put them to flight. 
To make his victory the more secure, he stationed guards at the differ- 
ent fords and passages of the Jordan, with instructions to let none pass 



280 The Innocents Abroad 

who could not say Shibboleth. The Ephraimites, being of a different 
tribe, could not frame to pronounce the word aright, but called it Sib- 
boleth, which proved them enemies and cost them their Hves; wherefore 
iorty and two thousand fell at the different fords and passages of the 
^ordan that day." 

We jogged along peacefully over the great caravan 
route from Damascus to Jerusalem and Egypt, past 
Lubia and other Syrian hamlets, perched, in the 
unvarying style, upon the summit of steep mounds 
and hills, and fenced round about with giant cactuses 
(the sign of worthless land), with prickly pears upon 
them like hams, and came at last to the battlefield of 
Hattin. 

It is a grand, irregular plateau, and looks as if it 
might have been created for a battlefield. Here 
the peerless Saladin met the Christian host some 
seven hundred years ago, and broke their power in 
Palestine for all time to come. There had long 
been a truce between the opposing forces, but ac- 
cording to the Guide-Book, Raynauld of Chatillon, 
Lord of Kerak, broke it by plundering a Damascus 
caravan, and refusing to give up either the merchants 
or their goods when Saladin demanded them. This 
conduct of an insolent petty chieftain stung the 
Sultan to the quick, and he swore that he would 
slaughter Raynauld with his own hand, no matter 
how, or when, or where he found him. Both 
armies prepared for war. Under the weak King of 
Jerusalem was the very flower of the Christian 
chivalry. He foolishly compelled them to undergo 
a long, exhausting march, in the scorching sun, and 



The Innocents Abroad 281 

then, without water or other refreshment, ordered them 
to encamp in this open plain. The splendidly mounted 
masses of Moslem soldiers swept round the north 
end of Gennesaret, burning and destroying as they 
came, and pitched their camp in front of the op- 
posing lines. At dawn the terrific fight began. 
Surrounded on all sides by the Sultan's swarming 
battalions, the Christian Knights fought on without 
a hope for their liveSo They fought with desperate 
valor, but to no purpose; the odds of heat and 
numbers and consuming thirst were too great 
against them. Toward the middle of the day the 
bravest of their band cut their way through the 
Moslem ranks and gained the summit of a little hilL 
and there, hour after hour, they closed around the 
banner of the Cross, and beat back the charging 
squadrons of the enemy. 

But the doom of the Christian power was sealed. 
Sunset found Saladin Lord of Palestine, the Chris- 
tian chivalry strewn in heaps upon the field, and the 
King of Jerusalem, the Grand Master of the Tem- 
plars, and Raynauld of Chatillon, captives in the 
Sultan*s tent. Saladin treated two of the prisoners 
with princely courtesy, and ordered refreshments to 
be set before them. When the King handed an iced 
Sherbet to Chatillon, the Sultan said, ** It is thou 
that givest it to him, not I.'* He remembered his 
oath, and slaughtered the hapless Knight of Chatillon 
with his own hand. 

It was hard to realize that this silent plain had 



282 The Innocents Abroad 

once resounded with martial music and trembled to 
the tramp of armed men. It was hard to people 
this solitude with rushing columns of cavalry, and 
stir its torpid pulses with the shouts of victors, the 
shrieks of the wounded, and the flash of banner and 
steel above the surging billows of war. A desolation 
is here that not even imagination can grace with the 
pomp of life and action. 

We reached Tabor safely^ and considerably in 
advance of that old iron-clad swindle of a guards 
We never saw a human being on the whole route, 
much less lawless hordes of Bedouins* Tabor 
stands solitary and alone, a giant sentinel above the 
Plain of EsdraeloUc It rises some fourteen hundred 
feet above the surrounding level, a green, wooded 
cone, symmetrical and full of grace — a prominent 
landmark, and one that is exceedingly pleasant to 
eyes surfeited with the repulsive monotony of desert 
Syriae We climbed the steep path to its summit, 
through breezy glades of thorn and oak. The view 
presented from its highest peak was almost beautiful. 
Below J was the broad, level plain of Esdraelon, 
checkered with fields like a chessboard, and full as 
smooth and level, seemingly; dotted about its 
borders with white, compact villages, and faintly 
penciled, far and near, with the curving lines of 
roads and trails. When it is robed in the fresh 
verdure of spring, it must form a charming picture, 
even by itself. Skirting its southern border rises 
' Little Hermon/* over whose summit a glimpse of 



The Innocents Abroad 2S3 

Gilboa is caught. Nain, famous for the raising of 
the widow's son, and Endor, as famous for the per- 
formances of her witch, are in view. To the east- 
ward h'es the Valley of the Jordan and beyond it the 
mountains of Gilead. Westward is Mount CarmeL 
Hermon in the north — the table-lands of Bashan — 
Safed, the holy city, gleaming white upon a tall spur 
of the mountains of Lebanon — a steel-blue corner 
of the Sea of Galilee — saddle-peaked Hattin, tradi- 
tional ** Mount of Beatitudes '* and mute witness of 
the last brave fight of the Crusading host for Holy 
Cross — -these fill up the picture. 

To glance at the salient features of this landscape 
through the picturesque framework of a ragged and 
ruined stone window-arch of the time of Christ, thus 
hiding from sight all that is unattractive, is to secure 
to yourself a pleasure worth climbing the mountain 
to enjoy. One must stand on his head to get the 
best effect in a fine sunset, and set a landscape in a 
bold, strong framework that is very close at hand, 
to bring out all its beauty. One learns this latter 
truth never more to forget it, in that mimic land 
of enchantment, the wonderful garden of my lord 
the Count Pallavicini, near Genoa. You go wander- 
ing for hours among hills and wooded glens, art- 
fully contrived to leave the impression that Nature 
shaped them and not man ; following winding paths 
and coming suddenly upon leaping cascades and 
rustic bridges ; finding sylvan lakes where you ex- 
pected them not; loitering through battered medi^- 



284 The Innocents Abroad 

val castles in miniature that seem hoary with age and 
yet were built a dozen years ago ; meditating over 
ancient crumbling tombs, whose marble columns 
were marred and broken purposely by the modern 
artist that made them; stumbling unawares upon 
toy palaces, wrought of rare and costly materials, 
and again upon a peasant's hut, whose dilapidated 
furniture would never suggest that it was made so to 
order; sweeping round and round in the midst of a 
forest on an enchanted wooden horse that is moved 
by some invisible agency ; traversing Roman roads 
and passing under majestic triumphal arches ; rest- 
ing in quaint bowers where unseen spirits discharge 
jets of water on you from every possible direction, 
and where even the flowers you touch assail you. 
with a shower; boating on a subterranean lake 
am.ong caverns and arches royally draped with 
clustering stalactites, and passing out into open day 
upon another lake, which is bordered with sloping 
banks of grass and gay with patrician barges that 
swim at anchor in the shadow of a miniature marble 
temple that rises out of the clear water and glasses 
^ts white statues, its rich capitals and fluted columns 
^.n the tranquil depths. So, from marvel to marvel 
you have drifted on, thinking all the time that the 
one last seen must be the chief est. And, verily, 
the chiefest wonder is reserved until the last, but 
you do not see it until you step ashore, and passing 
through a wilderness of rare flowers, collected from 
?very corner of the earth, you stand at the door of 



The innocents Abroad 28S 

one more mimic temple. Right m this place the 
artist taxed his genius to the utmost^ and fairly 
opened the gates of fairy land. You look through 
an unpretending pane of glass, stained yellow; the 
first thing you see is a mass of quivering foliage, ten 
short steps before you, in the midst of which is a 
ragged opening Hke a gateway — a thing that is 
common enough in nature, and not apt to excite 
suspicions of a deep human design — and above the 
bottom of the gateway, project, in the most careless 
way, a few broad tropic leaves and brilliant flowers., 
All of a sudden, through this bright, bold gateway, 
you catch a glimpse of the faintest, softest, richest 
picture that ever graced the dream of a dying Saint, 
since John saw the New Jerusalem glimmering above 
the clouds of Heavenc A broad sweep of sea,, 
flecked with careening sails; a sharp, jutting cape^ 
and a lofty lighthouse on it ; a sloping lawn behind 
it; beyond, a portion of the old **city of palaces,'' 
with its parks and hills and stately mansions ; beyond 
these, a prodigious mountain, with its strong out* 
lines sharply cut against ocean and sky; and, over 
all^ vagrant shreds and flakes of cloud, floating in a 
sea of goldc The ocean is gold, the city is gold, 
the meadow, the mountain, the sky — everything is 
golden — richj and mellow, and dreamy as a vision 
of Paradise. No artist could put upon canvas its 
entrancing beauty^ and yet, without the yellow 
glass, and the carefully contrived accident of a 
framework that cast it into enchanted distance and 



286 Thd innocents Abroad 

shut out from it all unattractive features, it was not 
a picture to fall into ecstasies oven Such is life, 
and the trail of the serpent is over us all. 

There is nothing for it now but to come back to 
old Tabor, though the subject is tiresome enough, 
and I cannot stick to it for wandering off to scenes 
that are pleasanter to remember, I think I will 
skip, anyhow. There is nothing about Tabor (ex- 
cept we concede that it was the scene of the Trans- 
figuration), but some gray old ruins, stacked up 
ffiere In all ages of the world from the days of stout 
Gideon and parties that flourished thirty centuries 
ago to the fresh yesterday of Crusading times. It 
has its Greek Convent, and the coffee there is good, 
but never a splinter of the true cross or bone of a 
hallowed saint to arrest the idle thoughts of world- 
lings and turn them into graver channelse A Cath- 
olic church is nothing to me that has no relics. 

The plain of Esdraelon—'' the battlefield of the 
nations**— only sets one to dreaming of Joshua, 
and Benhadadj and Saulj and Gideon; Tamerlane, 
Tancredj Cceur de Lion, and Saladin; the warrior 
Kings of Persia, Egypt's heroes, and Napoleon — 
for they all fought here„ If the magic of the moon- 
light could summon from the graves of forgotten 
centuries and many lands the countless myriads that 
have battled on this wide, far-reaching floor, and 
array them in the thousand strange costumes of their 
hundred nationalities^ and send the vast host sweep- 
mg down *he p\am, splendid with plumes and ban 



The Innocents Abroad 287 

ners and glittering lances, I could stay here an age 
to see the phantom pageant. But the magic of the 
moonlight is a vanity and a fraud ; and whoso 
putteth his trust in it shall suffer sorrow and disap- 
pointment. 

Down at the foot of Tabor, and Just at the edge 
of the storied Plain of Esdraelon, is the insignificant 
village of Deburieh, where Deborah, prophetess of 

Israel, lived. It is just like Magdala. 
19** 



CHAPTER XXIIL 

WE descended from Mount Tabor, crossed a deep 
ravine, and followed a hilly, rocky road to 
Nazareth — distant two hours. All distances in the 
East are measured by hours, not miles, A good 
horse will walk three miles an hour over nearly any 
kind of a road; therefore, an hour here always 
stands for three miles. This method of computation 
is bothersome and annoying; and until one gets 
thoroughly accustomed to it, it carries no intelli- 
gence to his mind until he has stopped and trans- 
lated the pagan hours into Christian miles, just as 
people do with the spoken words of a foreign 
language they are acquainted with, but not familiarly 
enough to catch the meaning in a moment. Dis- 
tances traveled by human feet are also estimxated by 
hours and minutes, though I do not know what the 
base of the calculation is. In Constantinople you 
ask, '* How far is it to the Consulate?'* and they 
ansv/er, *' About ten minutes.'* '* How far is it to 
the Lloyds* Agency?" "Quarter of an hour.** 
'' How far is it to the lower bridge?** ** Four min- 
utes.** I cannot be positive about it, but I think 
that there, when a man orders a pair of pantaloonsj^ 

(388) 



The Innocents Abroad 289 

he says he wants them a quarter of a minute in th§ 
legs and nine seconds around the waist. 

Two hours from Tabor to Nazareth — and as it wa^ 
an uncommonly narrow, crooked trail, we neces- 
sarily met all the camel trains and jackass caravans 
between Jericho and Jacksonville in that particular 
place and nowhere else. The donkeys do not matter 
so much, because they are so small that you can 
jump your horse over them if he is an animal of 
spirit, but a camel is not jumpable. A camel is as 
tall as any ordinary dwelling-house in Syria *— which 
is to say a camel is from one to two, and sometimes 
nearly three feet taller than a good-sized mane In 
this part of the country his load is oftenest in the 
shape of colossal sacks — = one on each side. He 
and his cargo take up as much room as a carriage. 
Think of meeting this style of obstruction in a 
narrow traiL The camel would not turn out for a 
king. He stalks serenely along, bringing his cush- 
ioned stilts forward with the long, regular swing of 
a pendulum, and whatever is in the way must get 
out of the way peaceably, or be wiped out forcibly 
by the bulky sacks. It was a tiresome ride to us^ 
and perfectly exhausting to the horses^ We were 
com.pelled to jump over upward of eighteen hundred 
donkeys, and only one person in the party was un 
seated less than sixty times by the camels. This 
seems like a powerful statement, but the poet has 
said, ** Things are not what they seem." 1 cannov* 
diink of anything now more certain to make om 
Id** 



290 The Innocents Abroad 

shudder, than to have a soft-footed camel sneak up 
behind him and touch him on the ear with its cold, 
flabby under lip. A camel did this for one of the 
boys, who was drooping over his saddle in a brown 
study. He glanced up and saw the majestic appari- 
tion hovering above him, and made frantic efforts to 
get out of the way, but the camel reached out and 
\bit him on the shoulder before he accomplished it. 
This was the only pleasant incident of the journey 

At Nazareth we camped in an olive grove neat 
the Virgin Mary's fountain, and that wonderful 
Arab '* guard** came to collect some bucksheesh 
for his *' services " in following us from Tiberias 
and warding off invisible dangers with the terrors of 
his armament. The dragoman had paid his master, 
but that counted as nothing — if you hire a man to 
sneeze for you here, and another man chooses to 
help him, you have got to pay both. They do 
nothing whatever without pay. How it must have 
surprised these people to hear the way of salvation 
offered to them ** without money and without priced 
If the manners, the people, or the customs of this 
country have changed since the Saviour's time, the 
figures and metaphors of the Bible are not the evi- 
dences to prove it by. 

We entered the great Latin Convent which is 
built over the traditional dwelling-place of the Holy 
Family„ We went down a flight of fifteen steps 
below the ground level, and stood in a small chapel 
tricked out with tapestry hangings, silver lamps, and 



The Innocenb Abroad 29i 

oil paintings, A spot marked by a cross, in H^ 
marble floor, under the altar, was exhibited as the 
place made forever holy by the feet of the Virgin 
when she stood up to receive the message of the 
angel. So simple, so unpretending a locality, to be 
the scene of so mighty an event 1 The very scene 
of the Annunciation — an event which has been 
commemorated by splendid shrines and august 
temples all over the civilized world, and one which 
the princes of art have made it their loftiest ambition 
to picture worthily on their canvas; a spot whose 
history is familiar to the very children of every 
house, and city, and obscure hamlet of the furthest 
lands of Christendom ; a spot which myriads of men 
would toil across the breadth of a world to see^ 
would consider it a priceless privilege to look upon^ 
It was easy to think these thoughts But it v/as not 
easy to bring myself up to the magnitude of the 
situationc I could sit off several thousand miles and 
imagine the angel appearing^ with shadowy wings 
and lustrous countenance^ and note the glory that 
streamed downward upon the Virgin's head while 
the message from the Throne of God fell upon her 
ears — any one can do that, beyond the ocean, but 
few can do it here. I saw the little recess from 
which the angel stepped, but could not fill its void. 
The angels that I know are creatures of unstable 
fancy — they will not ifit in niches of substantial 
stone. Imagination labors best in distant fields. I 
^oubt if any man can stand in the Grotto o^ f^^ 



'^92 The Innocents Abroad 

Annunciation and people with the phantom images 
of his mind its too tangible walls of stone* 

They showed us a broken granite pillar, depend- 
ing from the roof, which they said was hacked in 
two by the Moslem conquerors of Nazareth, in the 
vain hope of pulling down the sanctuarye But the 
pillar remained miraculously suspended in the air^ 
and, unsupported itself^ supported then and still 
supports the roof. By dividing this statement up 
among eighty it was found not difficult to believe itc 

These gifted Latin monks never do anything by 
halves If they were to show you the Brazen Ser- 
pent that was elevated in the wilderness, you could 
depend upon it that they had on hand the pole it 
was elevated on also, and even the hole it stood in. 
They have got the '* Grotto*' of the Annunciation 
here; and just as convenient to it as one's throat is 
to his mouth, they have also the Virgin's Kitchen, 
and even her sitting-roomj where she and Joseph 
watched the infant Saviour play with Hebrew toys 
eighteen hundred years ago All under one roofj 
and all clean, spacious, comfortable ** grottoeSo'' 
It seems curious that personages intimately con- 
nected with the Holy Family always lived in grot- 
toes— iP Nazareth, in Bethlehem, in imperial 
Ephesus "— and yet nobody else in their day and 
generation thought of doing anything of the kind. 
If they ever did, their grottoes are all gone, and I 
suppose we ought to wonder at the peculiar marvel 
oi the preservation of these I speak of When the 



The Innocents Abroad 293 

Virgin fled from Herod's wrath, she hid in a grotto 
m Bethlehem, and the same is there to this day. 
The slaughter of the innocents in Bethlehem was 
done in a grotto ; the Saviour was born in a grotto 
— both are shown to pilgrims yet. It is exceed- 
ingly strange that these tremendous events all hap- 
pened in grottoes — and exceedingly fortunate, like- 
wise, because the strongest houses must crumble to 
ruin in time, but a grotto in the living rock will last 
forever. It is an imposture — this grotto stuff — 
but it is one that all men ought to thank the Cath 
olics for. Wherever they ferret out a lost locality 
made holy by some Scriptural event, they straightway 
build a massive — almost imperishable — church 
there, and preserve the memory of that locality for 
the gratification of future generations. If it had 
been left to Protestants to do this most worthy 
work, we would not even know where Jerusalem i: 
to-day, and the man who could go and put his finger 
on Nazareth would be too wise for this world. The 
world owes the Catholics its good will even for the 
happy rascality of hewing out these bogus grottoes 
in the rock; for it is infinitely more satisfactory to 
look at a grotto, where people have faithfully be- 
lieved for centuries that the Virgin once lived, than 
to have to imagine a dwelling-place for her some- 
where, anywhere, nowhere, loose and at large all 
over this town of Nazareth. There is too large a 
scope of country. The imagination cannot Vv^ork 
There Is no one particular spot to chain your eye. 



294 The Innocents Abroad 

rivet your interest, and make you think. The mem« 
ory of the Pilgrims cannot perish while Plymouth 
Rock remains to us. The old monks are wise. 
They know how to drive a stake through a pleasant 
tradition that will hold it to its place forever. 

We visited the places where Jesus worked for 
fifteen years as a carpenter, and where he attempted 
to teach in the synagogue and was driven out by a 
mob. Catholic chapels stand upon these sites and 
protect the little fragments of the ancient walls 
which remain. Our pilgrims broke off specimens. 
We visited, also, a new chapel, in the midst of the 
town, which is built around a bowlder some twelve 
feet long by four feet thick; the priests discovered, 
a few years ago, that the disciples had sat upon this 
rock to rest once, when they had walked up from 
Capernaum. They hastened to preserve the relic. 
Relics are very good property. Travelers are ex- 
pected to pay for seeing them, and they do it cheer- 
fully. We Hke the idea. One's conscience can 
never be the worse for the knowledge that he has 
paid his way like a man. Our pilgrims would have 
liked very well to get out their lampblack and 
stencil-plates and paint their names on that rock, 
together with the names of the villages they hail 
from in America, but the priests permit nothing of 
that kindo To speak the strict truth, however, our 
party seldom offend in that way, though we have 
men in the ship who never lose an opportunity to 
do «t Our pilgrims* chief sin is their lust for 



The Innocents Abroad 295 

"specimens." I suppose that by this time they 
know the dimensions of that rock to an inch, and 
its weight to a ton ; and I do not hesitate to charge 
that they will go back there to-night and try to 
carry it off. 

This ** Fountain of the Virgin ** is the one which 
tradition says Mary used to get water from, twenty 
times a day, when she was a girl, and bear it away 
in a jar upon her head. The water streams through 
faucets in the face of a wall of ancient masonry 
which stands removed from the houses of the village 
The young girls of Nazareth still collect about it by 
the dozen and keep up a riotous laughter and sky- 
larking. The Nazarene girls are homely. Some of 
them have large, lustrous eyes, but none of them 
have pretty faces. These girls wear a single gar- 
ment, usually, and it is loose, shapeless, of unde- 
cided color; it is generally out of repair, too 
They wear, from crown to jaw, curious strings of 
old coins, after the manner of the belles of Tiberias, 
and brass jewelry upon their wrists and in their ears„ 
They wear no shoes and stockings. They are the 
most human girls we have found in the country yet, 
and the best natured. But there is no question that 
these picturesque maidens sadly lack comeliness. 

A pilgrim — the * * Enthusiast * * — said ; ' See that 
tall, graceful girl ! look at the Madonna-like beauty 
of her countenance !" 

Another pilgrim came along presently and said t 
•Observe that tall, graceful girl; what queenly 



296 The Innocents Abroad 

Madonna-like gracefulness of beauty is in hei 
countenance.'* 

I said: ** She is not tall, she is short; she is not 
beautiful, she is homely; she is graceful enough, I 
errant, but she is rather boisterous.** 

The third and last pilgrim moved by, before long, 
and he said: ** Ah, what a tall, graceful girl! what 
Madonna-Hke gracefulness of queenly beauty!*' 

The verdicts were all in. It was time, now, to 
Jiook up the authorities for all these opinions. I 
found this paragraph, which follows. Written by 
whom? Wm. C. Grimes: 

** After we were in the saddle, we rode down to the spring to have 
a last look at the women of Nazareth, who were, as a class, much the 
prettiest that we had seen in the East. As we approached the crov/d a 
4all girl of nineteen advanced toward Miriam and offered her a cup of 
water. Her movement was graceful and queenly. We exclaimed on 
the spot at the Madonna-like beauty of her countenance. Whitely was 
suddenly thirsty, and begged for water, and drank it slowly, with his 
eyes over the top of the cup, fixed on her large black eyes, which gazed 
on him quite as curiously as he on her. Then Moreright wanted water. 
She gave it to him and he managed to spill it so as to ask for another 
cup, and by the time she came to me she saw through the operation; 
her eyes were full of fun as she looked at me. I laughed outright, and 
she joined me in as gay a shout as ever country maiden in old Orange 
county, I wished for a picture of her. A Madonna, whose face was a 
portrait of that beautiful Nazareth girl, would be a * thing oi" beauty ' and 
-' a joy forever.* ** 

That is the kind of gruel which has been served 
out from Palestine for ages. Commend me to 
Fenimore Cooper to find beauty in the Indians, 
and to Grimes to find it in the Arabs. Arab men 
^re often fine looking, btit Arab women are not. 



The Innocents Abroad 29:? 

We can all believe that the Virgin Mary was beau- 
tiful ; it is not natural to think otherwise ; but does 
it follow that it is our duty to find beauty in these 
present women of Nazareth ? 

I love to quote from GrimeSj because he is so 
dramatic- And because he is so romantic. And 
because he seems to care but little whether he tells 
the truth or not, so he scares the reader or excites 
his envy or his admiration. 

He went through this peacefux kn6 with one 
hand forever on his revolver, and the other on his 
pocket-handkerchief. Always^ when he was not on 
the point of crying over a holy place, he was on the 
point of killing an Arab. More surprising things 
happened to him in Palestine than ever happened to 
any traveler here or elsewhere since Munchausen 
died. 

At Beit Jin, where nobody had interfered with 
him, he crept out of his tent at dead of night and 
shot at what he took to be an Arab lying on a 
rock, some distance away, planning evil The ball 
killed a wolf. Just before he fired ^ he makes a 
dramatic picture of himself — as usual^ to scare the 
reader : 

** Was it imagination, or did 1 see a moving object on the surface of 
the rock ? If it were a man, why did he not now drop me ? He had ? 
beautiful shot as I stood out in my black boomoose against the whitf 
tent. I had the sensation of an entering bullet in my throat, breast 
brain." 

Reckless creature? 



298 The innocents Abroad 

Riding toward Gennesaretj they saw two Bedouins, 
and '*we looked to our pistols and loosened them 
quietly in our shawls/' etc. Always cool- 
In Samaria, he charged up a hill, in the face of a 
volley of stones; he fired into the crowd of men 
who threw them. He says 

"* / never lost an opportunity of impressing the Arabs with the per- 
fection of American and English weapons, and the danger of attacking 
any one of the armed Franks. I think the lesson of that ball not lost.'* 

At Beitin he gave his whole band of Arab mule- 
teers a piece of his mind, and then — 

'* I contented myself with a solemn assurance that if there occurred 
another instance of disobedience to orders, I would thrash the responsi- 
ble party as he never dreamed of being thrashed, and if I could not find 
who was responsible, I would whip them all, from first to last, whether 
there was a governor at hand to do it or I had to do it myself." 

Perfectly fearless, this man. 

He rode down the perpendicular path in the 
rocks, from the Castle of Banias to the oak grove, 
at a flying gallop, his horse striding ** thirty feet** 
at every bound, I stand prepared to bring thirty 
reliable witnesses to prove that Putnam's famous 
feat at Horseneck was insignificant compared to 
this. 

Behold him — always theatrical — looking at Jeru- 
salem — this time, by an oversight, with his hand off 
his pistol for once. 

*' I stood in the road, my hand on my horse's neck, and with my 
dim eyes sought to trace the outlines of the holy places which I had 
k>ng before fixed in my mind, but the fast-flowing tears forbade my sue* 
aeedinf^. There were our Mohammedan servants, a Latin monk, two 



The Innocents Abroad 299 

Annenians, and a Jew In our cortege, and all aldke g^tzed with ^erflour 

big eyes." 

If Latin monks and Arabs cried » I know to ft 
moral certainty that the horses cried also, and so 
the picture is complete 

But when necessity demanded he could b<? firm as 
adamant. In the Lebanon Valley an Arab youth -— 
a Christian ; he is particular to explain that Moham- 
medans do not steal — robbed him of a paltry ten 
dollars* worth of powder and shot. He convicted 
him before a sheik and looked on while he was 
punished by the terrible bastinado. Hear hims 

" He (Mousa) was on his back in a twinkling, howling, shoutingj 
screaming, but he was carried out to the piazza before the door, where 
we could see the operation, and laid face down. One man sat on his 
back and one on his legs, the latter holding up his feet, while a third 
laid on the bare soles a rhinoceros-hide koorbash * that whizzed through 
the air at every stroke. Poor Moreright was in agony, and Kama and 
Nama the Second (mother and sister of Mousa) were on their faces 
begging and waDing, now embracing my knees and now Whitely's, while 
the brother, outside, made the air ring with cries louder than Mousa's. 
Even Yusef came and asked me on his knees to relent, and last of all, 
Betuni — the rascal had lost a feed-bag in their house and had been 
loudest in his denunciations that morning — besought the Howajji to 
have mercy on the fellow." 

But not he! The punishment was '* suspended/* 
at the fifteenth bloWy to hear the confession. Then 
Grimes and his party rode away, and left the entire 



* "A koorbash is Arabic for cowhide, the cow being a rhinoceroso 
It is the most cruel whip known to fame. Heavy as lead and flexible 
as India-rubber, usually about forty inches long and tapering gradually 
from an inch in diameter to a point, it administers a blow which i^v^ 
its mark for Hmec^'' — Scoua Life in Egypt, bv the same authoro 



SOD The Innocents Abroad 

Christian family to be fined and as severely punished 
as the Mohammedan sheik should deem proper, 

** As I mounted, Yusef once more begged me to interfere and have 
mercy on them, but I looked around at the dark faces of the crowd, 
and I couldn't find one drop of pity in my heart for them." 

He closes his picture with a rollicking burst of 
humor which contrasts finely with the grief of the 
mother and her children. 

One more paragraph % 

" Then once more I bowed my head. It is no shame to have wept 
m Palestine. I wept when I saw Jerusalem, I wept when I lay in the 
starlight at Bethlehem, I wept op the blessed shores of Galilee. My 
hand was no less firm on the rein, my finger did not tremble on the 
trigger of my pistol when I rode with it in my right hand along the 
shore of the blue sea ** (weeping.) ** My eye was not dimmed by those 
'tears nor my heart in aught weakened. Let him who would sneer at 
my emotion close this volume here, for he will find little to his taste in 
Rny journeyings through Holy Land." 

He never bored but he struck water. 

I am aware that thus is a pretty voluminous notice 
of Mr. Grimes' book. However, it is proper and 
legitimate to speak of it, for *' Nomadic Life in 
Palestine ** is a representative book — the representa* 
tive of a class of Palestine books— and a criticism 
upon it will serve for a criticism upon them all. 
And since I am treating it in the comprehensive 
capacity of a representative book, I have taken the 
liberty of giving to both book and author fictitious 
names. Perhaps it is in better taste, anyhow, to do 
this 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

NAZARETH Is wonderfully interesting because 
the town has an air about it of being precisely 
as Jesus left it, and one finds himself saying, all the 
time, **The boy Jesus has stood in this doorway — 
has played in that street — has touched these stones 
with his hands — has rambled over these chalky 
hills.'' Whoever shall write the Boyhood of Jesus 
ingeniously, will make a book which will possess a 
vivid interest for young and old alike. I judge so 
from the greater interest we found in Nazareth than 
any of our speculations upon Capernaum and the 
Sea of Galilee gave rise to. It was not possible^ 
standing by the Sea of Galilee, to frame more than 
a vague, far-away idea of the majestic Personage 
who walked upon the crested waves as if they had 
been solid earth, and who touched the dead and they 
rose up and spoke. I read among my notes, now^ 
with a new interest, some sentences from an edition 
of 1 62 1 of the Apocryphal New Testament 
[Extract.] 

*' Christ, kissed by a bride made dumb by sorcerers, cures her. A 
leprous girl cured by the water in which the infant Christ was washedn 



302 The Innocents Abroad 

and becomes the servant of Joseph and Mary. The leprous son of a 
Prince cured in like manner. 

" A young man who had been bewitched and turned into a mule, 
miraculously cured by the infant Saviour being put on his back, and is 
married to the girl who had been cured of leprosy. Whereupon the 
bystanders praise God, 

*' Chapter i6. Christ miraculously widens or contracts gates, milk- 
pails, sieves, or boxes not properly made by Joseph, he not being skillful 
at his carpenter's trade. The King of Jerusalem gives Joseph an order 
for a throne. Joseph works on it for two years and makes it two spans 
too short. The King being angry with him, Jesus comforts him — 
commands him to pull one side of the throne while he pulls the other, 
and brings it to its proper dimensions. 

" Chapter 19. Jesus, charged with throwing a boy from the roof of 
a house, miraculously causes the dead boy to speak and acquit him; 
fetches water for his mother, breaks the pitcher and miraculously gathers 
the water in his mantle and brings it home. 

** Sent to a schoolmaster, refuses to tell his letters, and the school- 
toaster going to whip him, his hand vnthers." 

Further on in this quaint volume of rejected gos- 
pels is an epistle of St. Clement to the Corinthians, 
which was used in the churches and considered 
genuine fourteen or fifteen hundred years ago In 
It this account of the fabled phoenix occurs ; 

** 1 6 Let us consider that wonderful type of the resurrection, which 
Is seen in the Eastern countries, that is to say, in Arabia. 

** 2. There is a certain bird called a phoenix. Of this there is never 
but one at a time, and that lives five hundred years. And when the 
time of its dissolution draws near, that it must die, it makes itself a nest 
of frankincense, and myrrh, and other spices, into which, when its time 
is fulfilled, it enters and dies, 

*• 3. But its flesh, putrefying, breeds a certain worm, which being 
nourished by the juice of the dead bird, brings forth feathers; and when 
it is grown to a perfect state, it takes up the nest in which the bones of 
ks parent lie, and carries it from Arabia into Egypt, to a city called 
Hdiopolis: 



The innocents Abroad }0J 

** 4. And flying in open day in the sight o! all men, lays it upon the 
altar of the sun, and so returns from whence it came. 

"5. The priests then search into the records of the time, and find 
that it returned precisely at the end of five hundred years.** 

Business is business, and there is nothing like 
punctuality, especially in a phoenix. 

The few chapters relating to the infancy of the 
Saviour contain many things which seem frivolous 
and not worth preserving. A large part of the re- 
maining portions of the book read like good Scrip- 
ture, however. There is one verse that ought not 
to have been rejected, because it so evidently pro- 
phetically refers to the general run of Congresses of 
the United States: 

" 199. They carry themselves high, and as prudent men; and though 
they are fools, yet would seem to be teachers." 

I have set these extracts down, as I found them. 
Everywhere, among the cathedrals of France and 
Italy, one finds traditions of personages that do not 
figure in the Bible^ and of miracles that are not 
mentioned in its pages. But they are all in this 
Apocryphal New Testament, and though they have 
been ruled out of our modern Bible, it is claimed 
that they were accepted gospel twelve or fifteen 
centuries ago, and ranked as high in credit as any. 
One needs to read this book before he visits those 
venerable cathedrals, with their treasures of tabooed 
and forgotten tradition. 

They imposed another pirate upon us at Nazareth 
— another invincible Arab guard. We took our 



504 The Innocents Abroad 

last look at the city^ clinging like a whitewashed 
wasp's nest to the hillside, and at eight o'clock in 
the morning, departed. We dismounted and drove 
the horses down a bridle-path which I think was 
fully as crooked as a corkscrew ; which I know to 
be as steep as the downward sweep of a rainbow, 
and which I believe to be the worst piece of road in 
the geography, except one in the Sandwich Islands, 
which I remember painfully, and possibly one or 
two mountain trails in the Sierra Nevadas. Often, 
In this narrow path, the horse had to poise himself 
nicely on a rude stone step and then drop his fore- 
feet over the edge and down something more than 
half his own height* This brought his nose near 
the ground, while his tail pointed up toward the sky 
somewhere, and gave him the appearance of pre- 
paring to stand on his head. A horse cannot look 
dignified in this position. We accomplished the 
long descent at last, and trotted across the great 
Plain of Esdraelon^ 

Some of us will be shot before we finish this 
pilgrimage. The pilgrims read ** Nomadic Life'* 
and keep themselves in a constant state of Quixotic 
heroism. They have their hands on their pistols all 
the time, and every now and then, when you least 
expect it, they snatch them out and take aim at 
Bedouins who are not visible, and draw their knives 
and make savage passes at other Bedouins who do 
not exist. I am in deadly peril always, for these 
spasms are sudden and irregular, and, of course, I 



The Innocents Abroad 305 

cannot tell when to be getting out of the way. If 1 

am accidentally murdered, some time, during one of 
these romantic frenzies of the pilgrims, Mr. Grimes 
must be rigidly held to answer as an accessory before 
the fact. If the pilgrims would take deliberate aim 
and shoot at a man, it would be all right and 
proper — because that man would not be in any 
danger; but these random assaults are what I object 
to I do not wish to see any more places like 
Esdraelon, where the ground is level and people can 
gallop. It puts melodramatic nonsense into the 
pilgrims' heads. All at once, when one is jogging 
along stupidly in the sun, and thinking about some- 
thing ever so far away, here they come, at a stormy 
gallop, spurring and whooping at those ridgy old 
sore-backed plugs till their heels fly higher than their 
heads, and, as they whiz by^ out comes a little potato 
gun of a revolver^ there is a startling little pop, and 
a small pellet goes singing through the air. Now 
that I have begun this pilgrimage, I intend to go 
through with it, though, sooth to say, nothing but 
the most desperate valor has kept me to my purpose 
up to the present time. I do not mind Bedouins,— 
I am not afraid of them ; because neither Bedouins 
nor ordinary Arabs have shown any disposition to 
harm us, but I £^0 feel afraid of my own comrades. 
Arriving at the furthest verge of the Plain, we 
rode a little way up a hill and found ourselves at 
Endor, famous for sts witch Her descendants are 
there yetc They were the wildest horde of haK 



306 The Innocents Abroad 

naked savages we have found thus far. The^ 
swarmed out of mud beehives; out of hovels of 
the drygoods box pattern; out of gaping caves 
under shelving rocks ; out of crevices in the earth. 
In five minutes the dead solitude and silence of the 
place were no more, and a begging, screeching, 
shouting mob were struggling about the horses* feet 
,isid blockmg the way ■* Bucksheesh ! bucksheesh I 
bucksheeshl howajji, bucksheesh!" It was Magdala 
over again, only here the glare from the infidel eyes 
was fierce and full of hate. The population numbers 
two hundred and fifty, and more than half the 
citizens live in caves in the rock. Dirt, degradation, 
and savagery are Endor*s specialty. We say no 
more about Magdala and Deburieh now. Endor 
heads the list. It is worse than any Indian cam^ 
foodie. The hill is barren, rocky, and forbidding. 
No sprig of grass is visible, and only one tree. 
This IS a fig tree, which maintains a precarious foot* 
ing among the rocks at the mouth of the dismal 
cavern once occupied by the veritable Witch of 
Endor. In this cavern, tradition says, Saul, the 
King, sat at midnight, and stared and trembled, 
while the earth shook, the thunders crashed among 
the hills, and out of the midst of fire and smoke the 
spirit of the dead prophet rose up and confronted 
him. Saul had crept to this place in the darkness, 
while his army slept, to learn what fate awaited him 
in the morrow's battle. He went away a sad man, 
K) meet disgrace and death „ 



The Innocents Abroad 307 

A spring trickles out of the rock in the gloomy 
recesses of the cavern, and we were thirsty. The 
citizens of Endor objected to our going in there. 
They do not mind dirt; they do not mind rags; 
they do not mind vermin ; they do not mind bar- 
barous ignorance and savagery ; they do not mind a 
reasonable degree of starvation, but they do like to 
be pure and holy before their god, whoever he may 
be, and therefore they shudder and grow almost 
pale at the idea of Christian lips polluting a spring 
whose waters must descend into their sanctified 
gullets. We had no wanton desire to wound even 
their feelings or trample upon their prejudices, but 
we were out of water, thus early in the day, and 
were burning up with thirst. It was at this time 
and under these circumstances that I framed an 
aphorism which has already become celebrated. I 
said: ** Necessity knows no law," We went in and 
drank 

We got away from the noisy wretches ^ finally 
dropping them in squads and couples as we filed 
over the hills — the aged first, the infants next, the 
young girls further on ; the strong men ran beside 
us a mile, and only left when they had secured the 
last possible piastre in the way of bucksheesh. 

In an hour, we reached Nain, where Christ raised 
the widow's son to life Nain is Magdala on s 
small scale. It has no population of any conse- 
quence Within a hundred yards of it is the 
original graveyard, for aught I know; the tomb- 



3^0S The ImKJceots Abroad 

stones iie flat on the ground, which is Jewish fashion 
m Syria I believe the Moslems do not allow them 
te have upright tombstones. A Moslem grave is 
usually roughly plastered over and whitewashed, and 
has at one end an upright projection which is shaped 
mto exceedingly rude attempts at ornamentation 
In the cities, there is often no appearance of a grave 
at all ; a tall, slender marble tombstone, elaborately 
lettered, gilded and painted, marks the burial place, 
and this is surmounted by a turban, so carved and 
shaped as to signify the dead man's rank in life. 

They showed a fragment of ancient wall which 
they said was one side of the gate out of which the 
widow's dead son was being brought so many 
centuries ago when Jesus met the procession i 

"' Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold there was 
^. dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a 
mdow; and much people of the city was with her. 

^' And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her^and ssddg 
Weep not.. 

^* And be came and touched the bier: and they that bare him stood 
stiS. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, arise. 

**And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And he 
delivejred him '^o his mother. 

** And there came a fear on all.. And they glorified God, saying, 
That 3. great prophet is risen up among us; and That God hath visited 
his people.*' 

A little mosque stands upon the spot which tradi- 
tion says was occupied by the widow* s dwellinge 
Two or three aged Arabs sat about its door. We 
entered, and the pilgrims broke specimens from the 
foundation walls, though they had to touch, and 



The Innocents Abroad 309 

even step, upon the ** praying carpets'* to do it. 
It was almost the same as breaking pieces from the 
hearts of those old Arabs. To step rudely upon 
the sacred praying mats, with booted feet — a thing 
not done by any Arab — was to inflict pain upon 
men who had not offended us in any way. Suppose 
a party of armed foreigners were to enter a village 
church in America and break ornaments from the 
altar railings for curiosities, and climb up and walk 
upon the Bible and the pulpit cushions? However, 
the cases are different. One is the profanation of a 
temple of our faith — the other only the profanation 
of a pagan one. 

We descended to the Plain again, and halted a 
moment at a well — of Abraham's time, no doubts 
It was in a desert place. It was walled three feet 
above ground with squared and heavy blocks of 
stone, after the manner of Bible pictures. Around 
it some camels stood, and others knelt. There was a 
group of sober little donkeys with naked, dusky 
children clambering about them, or sitting astride 
their rumps, or pulling their tails. Tawny, black- 
eyed, barefooted maids, arrayed in rags and adorned 
with brazen armlets and pinchbeck earrings, were 
poising water-jars upon their heads, or drawing water 
from the well. A flock of sheep stood by, waiting 
for the shepherds to fill the hollowed stones with 
water, so that they might drink — stones which, like 
those that walled the well, were worn smooth and 
deeply creased by the chafing chins of a hundred 



310 The Innocents At>roacl 

generations of thirsty animals. Picturesque Arabs 
sat upon the ground, in groups, and solemnly 
smoked their long-stemmed chibouks. Other Arabs 
were filling black hog-skins with water — skins 
which, well filled, and distended with water till the 
short legs projected painfully out of the proper line, 
looked like the corpses of hogs bloated by drowning. 
Here was a grand Oriental picture which I had 
worshiped a thousand times in soft, rich steel en- 
gravings ! But in the engraving there was no deso- 
lation ; no dirt ; no rags ; no fleas ; no ugly features ; 
no sore eyes ; no feasting flies ; no besotted igno- 
rance in the countenances; no raw places on the 
donkeys* backs; no disagreeable jabbering in un- 
known tongues; no stench of camels; no sugges- 
tion that a couple of tons of powder placed under 
the party and touched off would heighten the effect 
and give to the scene a genuine interest and a charm 
which it would always be pleasant to recall, even 
though a man lived a thousand years. 

Oriental scenes look best in steel engravings. I 
cannot be imposed upon any more by that picture 
of the Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon.. I shall 
say to myself. You look fine, madam, but your feet 
are not clean, and you smell like a camel. 

Presently, a wild Arab in charge of a camel train 
recognized an old friend in Ferguson, and they ran 
and fell upon each other's necks and kissed each 
other's grimy, bearded faces upon both cheeks. It 
explained mstantly a something which had always 



The Innocents Abroad 51 1 

seemed to me only a far-fetched Oriental figure of 
speech. I refer to the circumstance of Christ's 
rebuking a Pharisee, or some such character, and 
reminding him that from him he had received no 
** kiss of welcome." It did not seem reasonable to 
me that men should kiss each other, but I am aware, 
now, that they did. There was reason in it, too. 
The custom was natural and proper; because people 
must kiss, and a man would not be likely to kiss one 
of the women of this country of his own free will 
and accord. One must travel, to learn. Every day^ 
now, old Scriptural phrases that never possessed any 
significance for me before take to themselves a 
meaning. 

We journeyed around the base of the mountain -«- 
** Little Hermon/' — past the old Crusaders* castle 
of El Fuleh, and arrived at Shunem. This was 
another Magdala, to a fraction, frescoes and alL 
Here, tradition says, the prophet Samuel was born^ 
and here the Shunamite woman built a little house 
upon the city wall for the accommodation of the pro- 
phet Elisha. Elisha asked her what she expected 
in return. It was a perfectly natural question, for 
these people are and were in the habit of proffering 
favors and services and then expecting and begging 
for pay„ Elisha knew them well. He could not 
comprehend that anybody should build for him that 
humble little chamber for the mere sake of old 
friendship, and with no selfish motive whatever. It 
used to seem a very impolite, not to say a rude 



Ji2 rise Innocents Abroad 

question, for Elisha to ask the woman, but it does 
not seem so to me now. The woman said she ex- 
pected nothing. Then, for her goodness and her 
unselfishness, he rejoiced her heart with the news 
that she should bear a son. It was a high re- 
ward—but she would not have thanked him for a 
daughter — daughters have always been unpopular 
here. The son was born, grew, waxed strong, died. 
Elisha restored him to life in Shunem, 

We found here a grove of lemon trees — cool, 
shadyj hung with fruits One is apt to overestimate 
beauty when it is rare, but to me this grove seemed 
very beautiful. It was beautiful. I do not over- 
estimate it. I must always remember Shunem grate- 
fully, as a place which gave to us this leafy shelter 
after our long, hot ride. We lunched, rested, 
chatted, smoked our pipes an hour, and then 
mounted and moved on. 

As we trotted across the Plain of Jezreel, we met 
half a dozen Digger Indians (Bedouins) with very 
long spears in their hands, cavorting around on old 
crowbait horses, and spearing imaginary enemies; 
whooping, and fluttering their rags in the wind, and 
carrying on in every respect like a pack of hopeless 
lunatics. At last, here were the **wild, free sons 
of the desert, speeding over the plain like the wind, 
on their beautiful Arabian mares ' ' we had read so 
much about and longed so much to see ! Here were 
the ** picturesque costumes " ! This was the ** gal- 
lant spectacle"! Tatterdemalion vagrants — cheap 



The Innocents Abroad 313 

braggadocio ~~ ** Arabian mares ** spined and necked 
2ike the ichthyosaurus in the museum, and humped 
and cornered Hke a dromedary! To glance at the 
genuine son of the desert is to take the romance out 
of him forever — to benold his steed is to long in 
charity to strip his harness off and let him fall to 
pieces. 

Presently we came to a ruinous old town on a hill, 
the same being the ancient Jezreel. 

Ahab, King of Samaria (this was a very vast king- 
dom, for those days, and was very nearly half as 
large as Rhode Island) dwelt in the city of Jezreel, 
which was his capital. Near him lived a man by the 
name of Naboth, who had a vineyard. The King 
asked him for it, and when he would not give it, 
offered to buy it. But Naboth refused to sell it. 
In those days it was considered a sort of crime 
to part with one's inheritance at any price — and 
even if a man did part with it, it reverted to himself 
or his heirs again at the next jubilee year. So this 
spoiled child of a King went and lay down on the 
bed with his face to the wall, and grieved sorely. 
The Queen, a notorious character in those days, and 
whose name is a byword and a reproach even m 
these, came in and asked him wherefore he sorrowed, 
and he told her. Jezebel said she could secure the 
vineyard ; and she went forth and forged letters to 
the nobles and wise men, in the King's name, r ad 
ordered them to proclaim a fast and set Naboth >n 
high before the people, and suborn two witness© to 



3 14 The Innocents Abroad! 

swear that he had blasphemed. They did it, and the 
people stoned the accused by the city wall, and he 
died. Then Jezebel came and told the King, and 
said, Behold, Naboth is no more — rise up and seize 
the vineyard. So Ahab seized the vineyard, and 
went into it to possess it. But the Prophet Elijah 
came to him there and read his fate to him, and the 
fate of Jezebel; and said that in the place where 
dogs licked the blood of Naboth, dogs should also 
lick his blood — and he said, likewise, the dogs 
should eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel. In the 
course of time, the King was killed in battle, and 
when his chariot wheels were washed in the pool of 
Samaria, the dogs licked the blood. In after years, 
Jehu, who was King of Israel, marched down against 
Jezreel, by order of one of the Prophets, and admin- 
istered one of those convincing rebukes so common 
among the people of those days: he killed many 
kings and their subjects, and as he came along he 
saw Jezebel, painted and finely dressed, looking out 
of a window, and ordered that she be thrown down 
to him. A servant did it, and Jehu's horse trampled 
her under foot. Then Jehu went in and sat down 
to dinner; and presently he said, Go and bury this 
cursed woman, for she Is a King's daughter. The 
spirit of charity came upon him too late, however, 
for the prophecy had already been fulfilled — the 
dogs had eaten her, and they * ' found no more of her 
than the skull, and the feet, and the palms of her 
hands/* 



The Innocents Abroad 315 

Ahab, the late King, had left a helpless family be- 
hind him, and Jehu killed seventy of the orphan sons , 
Then he killed all the relatives, and teachers, and 
servants and friends of the family, and rested from 
his labors, until he was come near to Samaria, where 
he met forty-two persons and asked them who they 
were ; they said they were brothers of the King of 
Judah. He killed them. When he got to Samaria, 
he said he would show his zeal for the Lord ; so he 
gathered all the priests and people together that 
worshiped Baal, pretending that he was going to 
adopt that worship and offer up a great sacrifice; 
and when they were all shut up where they could 
not defend themselves, he caused every person of 
them to be killed. Then Jehu, the good missionary, 
rested from his labors once more. 

We went back to the valley, and rode to the Foun- 
tain of Ain Jeliid. They call it the Fountain of 
Jezreel, usually. It is a pond about one hundred 
feet square and four feet deep, with a stream of 
water trickling into it from under an overhanging 
ledge of rocks. It is in the midst of a great solitudec 
Here' Gideon pitched his camp in the old times; 
behind Shunem lay the ** Midianites, the Amalekites, 
and the Children of the East," who were ** as grass- 
hoppers for multitude ; both they and their camels 
were without number, as the sand by the seaside for 
multitude." Which means that there were one hun- 
dred and thirty-five thousand men, and that they had 
transportation service accordingly. 



316 The innocents Abroad 

Gideon, with only three hundred men, surprised 
them In the night, and stood by and looked on while 
they butchered each other until a hundred and twenty 
thousand lay dead on the field. 

We camped at Jenin before night, and got up and 
started again at one o'clock in the morning. Some- 
where towards daylight we passed the locality where 
the best authenticated tradition locates the pit into 
which Joseph's brethren threw him, and about noon, 
after passing over a succession of mountain tops, 
clad with groves of fig and olive trees, with the 
Mediterranean in sight some forty miles away, and 
going by many ancient Biblical cities whose inhab- 
itants glowered savagely upon our Christian proces- 
sion, and were seemingly inclined to practice on it 
with stones, we came to the singularly terraced and 
unlovely hills that betrayed that we were out of 
Galilee and into Samaria at last. 

We climbed a high hill to visit the city of Samaria, 
where the woman may have hailed from who con- 
versed with Christ at Jacob's Well, and from whence, 
no doubt, came also the celebrated Good Samaritan^ 
Herod the Great is said to have made a magnificent 
city of this place, and a great number of coarse lime- 
stone columns, twenty feet high and two feet through, 
that are almost guiltless of architectural grace of 
shape and ornament, are pointed out by many 
authors as evidence of the fact. They would not 
have been considered handsome in ancient Greece, 
however. 



The innocents Abroad 317 

The inhabitants of this camp are particularly 
vicious, and stoned two parties of our pilgrims a 
day or two ago who brought about the difficulty by 
showing their revolvers when they did not intend to 
use them — a thing which is deemed bad judgment 
in the Far West, and ought certainly to be so con- 
sidered anywhere. In the new Territories, when a 
man puts his hand on a weapon, he knows that he 
must use it; he must use it instantly or expect to be 
shot down where he stands. Those pilgrims had 
been reading Grimes, 

There was nothing for us to do in Samaria but buy 
handfuls of old Roman coins at a franc a dozen, and 
look at a dilapidated church of the Crusaders and a 
vault in it which once contained the body of John 
the Baptist. This relic was long ago carried away 
to Genoa. 

Samaria stood a disastrous siege, once, in the 
days of Elisha, at the hands of the King of Syria. 
Provisions reached such a figure that ** an ass's head 
was sold for eighty pieces of silver and the fourth 
part of a cab of dove's dung for five pieces of 
silver.** 

An incident recorded of that heavy time will give 
one a very good idea of the distress that prevailed 
within these crumbling walls. As the King was walk- 
ing upon the battlements one day, ** a woman cried 
out, saying, Help, my lord, O King ! And the King 
said, What aileth thee? and she answered, This 
woman S3?d unto me^ Give thy son, that we may eat 



518 The innocents Abroad 

him to-day, and we will eat my son to-morrow. So 
we boiled my son, and did eat him; and I said unto 
her on the next day, Give thy son that we may eat 
him; and she hath hid her son.*' 

The prophet Elisha declared that within four and 
twenty hours the prices of food should go down to 
nothing, almost, and it was so. The Syrian army 
broke camp and fled, for some cause or other, the 
famine was relieved from without, and many a 
shoddy speculator in dove's dung and ass's meat was 
ruined. 

We were glad to leave this hot and dusty old vil- 
lage and hurry on. At two o'clock we stopped to 
lunch and rest at ancient Shechem, between the his- 
toric Mounts of Gerizim and Ebal where in the old 
times the books of the law, the curses and the bless- 
ings, were read from the heights to the Jewish multi* 
tudes below. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

THE narrow canon in which Nablous, or Shechem< 
is situated, is under high cultivation, and the 
soil is exceedingly black and fertile. It is well 
watered, and its affluent vegetation gains effect by 
contrast with the barren hills that tower on either 
side. One of these hills is the ancient Mount of 
Blessings and the other the Mount of Curses; and 
wise men who seek for fulfillments of prophecy think 
they find here a wonder of this kind — to wit, that 
the Mount of Blessings is strangely fertile and its 
mate as strangely unproductive. We could not see 
that there was really much difference between them 
in this respect, however. 

Shechem is distinguished as one of the residences 
of the patriarch Jacob, and as the seat of those tribes 
that cut themselves loose from their brethren of 
Israel and propagated doctrines not in conformity 
with those of the original Jewish creed. For thou- 
sands of years this clan have dwelt in Shechem under 
strict tabuy and having Httle commerce or fellowship 
with their fellow-men of any religion or nationality. 
For generations they have not numbered more than 



320 The Innocents Abroad 

one or two hundred, but they still adhere to their 
ancient faith and maintain their ancient rites and 
ceremonies. Talk of family and old descent ! Princes 
and nobles pride themselves upon lineages they can 
trace back some hundreds of years. What is this trifle 
to this handful of old first families of Shechem, who 
can name their fathers straight back without a flaw for 
thousands — straight back to a period so remote that 
men reared in a country where the days of two hun- 
dred years ago are called ** ancient" times grow 
dazed and bewildered when they try to comprehend 
it! Here is respectability for you — here is 
"family** — here is high descent worth talking 
about. This sad, proud remnant of a once mighty 
community still hold themselves aloof from all the 
world; they still live as their fathers lived, labor as 
their fathers labored, think as they did, feel as they 
did, worship in the same place, in sight of the same 
landmarks, and in the same quaint, patriarchal way 
their ancestors did more than thirty centuries ago. 
I found myself gazing at any straggling scion of 
this strange race with a riveted fascination, just as 
one would stare at a living mastodon, or a megather- 
ium that had moved in the gray dawn of creation and 
seen the wonders of that mysterious world that was 
before the flood. 

Carefully preserved among the sacred archives of 
this curious community is a MS. copy of the ancient 
Jewish law, which is said to be the oldest document 
on earth. It is written on vellum, and is some four 



The Innocents Abroad 32 1 

or five thousand years old^ Nothing but bucksheesh 
can purchase a sight. Its fame is somewhat dimmed 
:n these latter days, because of the doubts so many 
authors of Palestine travels have felt themselves 
privileged to cast upon it. Speaking of this MSo 
reminds me that I procured from the high priest of 
this ancient Samaritan community, at great expense^ 
a secret document of still higher antiquity and far 
more extraordinary interest, which I propose to pub* 
lish as soon as I have finished translating it, 

Joshua gave his dying injunction to the children 
of Israel at Shechem, and buried a valuable treasure 
secretly under an oak tree there about the same time. 
The superstitious Samaritans have always been 
afraid to hunt for it. They believe it is guarded by 
fierce spirits invisible to men. 

About a mile and a half from Shechem we halted 
at the base of Mount Ebal, before a little square area, 
inclosed by a high stone wall, neatly whitewashed. 
Across one end of this enclosure is a tomb built 
after the manner of the Moslems* It is the tomb o£ 
Joseph, No truth is better authenticated than this. 

When Joseph was dying he prophesied that exodus 
of the Israelites from Egypt which occurred four 
hundred years afterwards. At the same time he ex- 
acted of his people an oath that when they journeyed 
to the land of Canaan, they would bear his bones 
with them and bury them in the ancient inheritance 
of his fathersc The oath was kepto 

" And the bones of Josepk, which the children of Israel brought Uf 



i22 The Innocents Abroad 

out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which 
Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem, for a 
hundred pieces of silver." 

Few tombs on earth command the veneration of 
so many races and men of divers creeds as this of 
Joseph. •* Samaritan and Jew, Moslem and Chris- 
tian alike, revere it, and honor it with their visits. 
The tomb of Joseph, the dutiful son, the affection- 
ate, forgiving brother, the virtuous man, the wise 
Prince and ruler. Egypt felt his influence — the 
world knows his history." 

In this same ** parcel of ground*' which Jacob 
bought of the sons of Hamor for a hundred pieces 
of silver, is Jacob's celebrated well. It is cut in the 
solid rock, and is nine feet square and ninety feet 
deep. The name of this unpretending hole in the 
ground, which one might pass by and take no notice 
of, is as familiar as household words to even the 
children and the peasants of many a far-off country. 

It is more famous than the Parthenon ; it is older 
than the Pyramids. 

It was by this well that Jesus sat and talked with a 
woman of that strange, antiquated Samaritan com- 
munity I have been speaking of, and told her of the 
mysterious water of life. As descendants of old 
English nobles still cherish in the traditions of their 
houses how that this king or that king tarried a day 
with some favored ancestor three hundred years ago, 
no doubt the descendants of the woman of Samaria, 
living there in Shechem, still refer with pardonable 
vanity to this conversation of their ancestor, held 



The Innocents Abroad 32} 

some little time gone by, with the Messiah of the 
Christians. It is not likely that they undervalue a 
distinction such as this. Samaritan nature is human 
nature, and human nature remembers contact with 
the illustrious, always. 

For an offense done to the family honor, the sons 
of Jacob exterminated all Shechem once. 

We left Jacob's Well and traveled till eight in the 
evening, but rather slowly, for we had been in the 
saddle nineteen hours, and the horses were cruelly 
tired. We got so far ahead of the tents that we had 
to camp in an Arab village, and sleep on the ground. 
We could have slept in the largest of the houses ; 
but there were some little drawbacks ; it was popu- 
lous with vermin, it had a dirt floor, it was in no 
respect cleanly, and there was a family of goats in 
the only bedroom, and two donkeys in the parlor. 
Outside there were no inconveniences, except that 
the dusky, ragged, earnest-eyed villagers of both 
sexes and all ages grouped themselves on their 
haunches all around us, and discussed us and criti- 
cised us with noisy tongues till midnight. We did 
not mind the noise, being tired, but, doubtless, the 
leader is aware that it is almost an impossible thing 
to go to sleep when you know that people are 
looking at you. We went to bed at ten, and got up 
again at two and started once moreo Thus are 
people persecuted by dragomen, whose sole ambi- 
tion in life is to get ahead of each other. 

About daylight we passed Shiloh, where the ArJp 



324 The Innocents ADroaa 

of the Covenant rested three hundred years, and ai 
whose gates good old Eli fell down and ** brake his 
neck " when the messenger, riding hard from the 
battle, told him of the defeat of his people, the 
death of his sons, and, more than all, the capture of 
Israel's pride, her hope, her refuge, the ancient Ark 
her forefathers brought with them out of Egypt. It 
is little wonder that under circumstances like these 
he fell down and brake his neck. But Shiloh had 
no charms for us, VVe were so cold that there was 
no comfort but in motion, and so drowsy we could 
hardly sit upon the horses. 

After a while we came to a shapeless mass of 
ruins, which still bears the name of Beth-eL It was 
here that Jacob lay down and had that superb vision 
of angels flitting up and down a ladder that reached 
from the clouds to earth, and caught glimpses of 
their blessed home through the open gates of Heaven. 

The pilgrims took what was left of the hallowed 
fuinj and we pressed on toward the goal of our 
crusade, renowned Jerusalem. 

The further we went the hotter the sun got, and 
the more rocky and bare, repulsive and dreary the 
landscape became. There could not have been more 
fragments of stone strewn broadcast over this part 
of the world, if every ten square feet of the land 
had been occupied by a separate and distinct stone- 
cutter's establishment for an age. There was hardly 
a tree or a shrub anywhere^ Even the olive and 
^Jne cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had 



The Innocents Abroad 325 

almost deserted the country. No landscape exists 
that is more tiresome to the eye than that which 
bounds the approaches to Jerusalem. The only 
difference between the roads and the surrounding 
country, perhaps, is that there are rather more rocks 
in the roads than in the surrounding country. 

We passed Ramah and Beroth, and on the right 
saw the tomb of the prophet Samuel, perched high 
upon a commanding eminence. Still no Jerusalem 
came in sight. We hurried on impatiently. We 
halted a moment at the ancient Fountain of Beira, 
but its stones, worn deeply by the chins of thirsty 
animals that are dead and gone centuries ago, had 
no interest for us — we longed to see Jerusalem. 
We spurred up hill after hill, and usually began to 
stretch our necks minutes before we got to the top 
— but disappointment always followed — more 
stupid hills beyond — more unsightly landscape — 
no Holy City. 

At last, away in the middle of the day, ancient 
bits of wall and crumbling arches began to line the 
way — we toiled up one more hill, and every pilgrim 
and every sinner swung his hat on high ! Jerusalem ! 

Perched on its eternal hills, white and domed and 
solid, massed together and hooped with high gray 
walls, the venerable city gleamed in the sun. So 
small ! Why, it was no larger than an American 
village of four thousand inhabitants, and no larger 
than an ordinary Syrian city of thirty thousand 
Jerusalem numbers only fourteen thousand people. 



326 The Innocents Abroad 

We dismounted and looked, without speaking a 
dozen sentences, across the wide intervening valley 
for an hour or more ; and noted those prominent 
features of the city that pictures make familiar to all 
men from their school days till their death. We 
could recognize the Tower of Hippicus, the Mosque 
of Om.ar, the Damascus Gate, the Mount of Olives, 
the Valley of Jehoshaphat, the Tower of David, and 
the Garden of Gethsemane — and dating from these 
landmarks could tell very nearly the localities of 
many others we were not able to distinguish. 

I record it here as a iiotable but not discreditable 
fact that not even our pilgrims wept. I think there 
was no individual in the party whose brain was not 
teeming with thoughts and images and memories 
invoked by the grand history of the venerable city 
that lay before us, but still among them all was no 
** voice of them that wept.*' 

There was no call for tears. Tears would have 
been out of place. The thoughts Jerusalem suggests 
are full of poetry, sublimity, and more than all, 
dignity. Such thoughts do not find their appro- 
priate expression in the emotions of the nursery. 

Just after noon we entered these narrow, crooked 
streets, by the ancient and the famed Damascus 
Gate, and now for several hours I have been trying 
to comprehend that I am actually in the illustrious 
old city where Solomon dwelt, where Abraham held 
converse with the Deity, and where walls still stand 
that witnessed the spectacle of the Crucifixion o 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

A FAST walker could go outside the walls ol 
Jerusalem and walk entirely around the city in 
an hour. I do not know how else to make one 
understand how small it is. The appearance of the 
city is peculiar. It is as knobby with countless little 
domes as a prison door is with bolt-heads. Every 
house has from one to half a dozen of these white 
plastered domes of stone, broad and low, sitting in 
the center of, or in a cluster upon, the flat roof. 
Wherefore, when one looks down from an eminence, 
upon the compact mass of houses (so closely 
crowded together, in fact, that there is no appear- 
ance of streets at all, and so the city looks solid) he 
sees the knobbiest town in the world, except Con- 
stantinoplCe It looks as if it might be roofed, from 
center to circumference, with inverted saucers. The 
monotony of the view is interrupted only by the 
great Mosque of Omar, the Tower of Hippicus, and 
one or two other buildings that rise into command- 
ing prominence. 

The houses are generally two stories high, built 
strongly of masonry, whitewashed or plastered out 

(327) 



328 The Innocents Abroad 

side, and have a cage of wooden lattice-work pro- 
jecting in front of every window. To reproduce a 
Jerusalem street, it would only be necessary to up- 
end a chicken-coop and hang it before each window 
in an alley of American houses. 

The streets are roughly and badly paved with 
stone, and are tolerably crooked — enough so to 
make each street appear to close together constantly ' 
and come to an end about a hundred yards ahead of 
a pilgrim as long as he chooses to walk in it. Pro- 
jecting from the top of the lower story of many of 
the houses is a very narrow porch-roof or shed, 
without supports from below; and I have several 
times seen cats jump across the street from one shed 
to the other when they were out calling. The cats 
could have jumped double the distance without 
extraordinary exertion. I mention these things to 
give an idea of how narrow the streets are. Since 
a cat can jump across them without the least incon- 
venience, it is hardly necessary to state that such 
streets are too narrow for carriages. These vehicles 
cannot navigate the Holy City. 

The population of Jerusalem is composed of Mos- 
lems, Jews, Greeks, Latins, Armenians, Syrians, 
Copts, Abyssinians, Greek Catholics, and a handful 
of Protestants. One hundred of the latter sect are 
all that dwell now in this birthplace of Christianity. 
The nice shades of nationality comprised in the 
above list, and the languages spoken by them, are 
altogether too numerous to mention. It seems to 



The Innocents Abroad 329 

me that all the races and colors and tongues of the 
earth must be represented among the fourteen thou- 
sand souls that dwell in Jerusalem. Rags, wretched- 
ness, poverty, and dirt, those signs and symbols that 
indicate the presence of Moslem rule more surely 
than the crescent-flag itself, abound. Lepers, crip- 
plesj the blind, and the idiotic, assail you on every 
hand, and they know but one word of but one 
language apparently — the eternal ** bucksheesh/' 
To see the numbers of m.aimed, malformed ^ and dis* 
eased humanity that throng the holy places and 
obstruct the gates, one might suppose that the 
ancient days had come again, and that the angel of 
the Lord was expected to descend at any moment to 
stir the waters of Bethesda. Jerusalem is mournful,; 
and dreary, and lifeless. I would not desire to live 
here. 

One naturally goes first to the Holy Sepulchre. 
It is right in the city, near the western gate ; it and 
the place of the Crucifixion, and, in fact, every other 
place intimately connected with that tremendous 
event, are ingeniously massed toqeli^cr and cov^ered 
by one roof — the dome of the Church of the Holy 
Sepulchre. 

Entering the building, through, the midst of the 
usual assemblage of beggars, one sees on his left a 
few Turkish guards — for Christians of different 
sects will not only quarrel, but fight, also, in this 
sacred place, if allowed to do it. Before you is a 
marble slab, which covers the Stone of Unction, 



330 The Innocents Abroad 

whereon the Saviour's body was laid to prepare it 
for buriaL It was found necessary to conceal the 
real stone in this way in order to save it from de- 
struction. Pilgrims were too much given to chip- 
ping off pieces of it to carry home. Near by is a 
circular railing which marks the spot where the 
Virgin stood when the Lord's body was anointed. 

Entering the great Rotunda, we stand before the 
most sacred locality in Christendom — the grave of 
Jesus. It is in the center of the church, and imme- 
diately under the great dome. It is inclosed in a 
sort of little temple of yellow and white stone, of 
fanciful design. Within the little temple is a por- 
tion of the very stone which was rolled away from 
the door of the Sepulchre, and on which the angel 
was sitting when Mary came thither * * at early 
dawn." Stooping low, we enter the vault — the 
Sepulchre itself. It is only about six feet by seven, 
and the stone couch on which the dead Saviour lay 
extends from end to end of the apartment and occu- 
pies half its widths It is covered with a marble slab 
which has been much worn by the lips of pilgrims. 
This slab serves as an altar now. Over it hang 
some fifty gold and silver lamps, which are kept 
always burning, and the place is otherwise scandal- 
ized by trumpery gewgaws and tawdry ornamenta- 
tion. 

All sects of Christians (except Protestants) have 
chapels under the roof of the Church of the Holy 
Sepulchre,; and each must keep to itself and not 



The Innocents Abroad $$1 

venture upon another's ground. It has been proven 
conclusively that they cannot worship together 
around the grave of the Saviour of the World in 
peace. The chapel of the Syrians is not handsome ; 
that of the Copts is the humblest of them all. It is 
nothing but a dismal cavern, roughly hewn in the 
living rock of the Hill of Calvary. In one side of it 
two ancient tombs are hewn, which are claimed to 
be those in which Nicodemus and Joseph of Arima- 
thea were buried. 

As we moved among the great piers and pillars of 
another part of the church, we came upon a party 
of black-robed, animal-looking Italian monks, with 
candles in their hands, who were chanting something 
in Latin, and going through some kind of religious 
performance around a disk of white marble let into 
the floor. It was there that the risen Saviour ap- 
peared to Mary Magdalen in the likeness of a gar- 
dener. Near by was a similar stone, shaped like a 
star — here the Magdalen herself stood, at the same 
time. Monks were performing in this place also. 
They perform everywhere — all over the vast build- 
ing, and at all hours. Tlieir candles are always 
flitting about in the gloom, and making the dim old 
church more dismal than there is any necessity that 
it should be, even though it is a tomb. 

We were shown the place where our Lord ap- 
peared to His mother after the Resurrection. Here^ 
also, a marble slab marks the place where St. 
Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine. 



$p The Innocents Abroad 

found the crosses about three hundred years aftei 
the Crucifixion. According to the legend, this great 
discovery elicited extravagant demonstrations of joy. 
But they were of short duration. The question 
intruded itself 2 ** Which bore the blessed Saviour^ 
and which the thieves?** To be in doubt, in so 
mighty a matter as this — to be uncertain which one 
to adore— was a grievous misfortune. It turned 
the public joy to sorrow. But when lived there a 
holy priest who could not set so simple a trouble as 
this at rest? One of these soon hit upon a plan 
that would be a certain test. A noble lady lay very 
111 in Jerusalem. The wise priests ordered that the 
three crosses be taken to her bedside one at a time. 
It was done. When her eyes fell upon the first one, 
she uttered a scream that was heard beyond the 
Damascus Gate, and even upon the Mount of Olives, 
it was said, and then fell back in a deadly swoon. 
They recovered her and brought the second cross. 
Instantly she went Into fearful convulsions, and it 
was with the greatest difRculty that six strong men 
could hold her. They were afraid, now, to bring in 
the third cross. They began to fear that possibly 
they had fallen upon the wrong crosses, and that the 
true cross was not with this number at alL How- 
aver, as the woman seemed likely to die with the 
convulsions that were tearing her, they concluded 
that the third could do no more than put her out of 
her misery with a happy dispatch. So they brought 
rt., and behold, a miracle ! The woman sprang" from. 



The Innocents Abroad 333 

her bed, smiling and joyful, and perfectly restored 
to health. When we listen to evidence like this, we 
cannot but believe. We would be ashamed to doubtj 
and properly, too- Even the very part of Jerusalem 
where this all occurred is there yet. So there is 
really no room for doubt. 

The priest tried to show us, through a small 
screen, a fragment of the genuine Pillar of Flagella- 
tion, to which Christ was bound when they scourged 
him. But we could not see it, because it was dark 
inside the screen. However, a baton is kept here, 
which the pilgrim thrusts through a hole in the 
screen, and then he no longer doubts that the true 
Pillar of Flagellation is in there. He cannot have 
any excuse to doubt it, for he can feel it with the 
stick. He can feel it as distinctly as he could feel 
anything. 

Not far from here was a niche where they used to 
preserve a piece of the True Cross, but it is gone 
now. This piece of the cross was discovered in the 
sixteenth century. The Latin priests say it was 
stolen away, long ago, by priests of another sect. 
That seems like a hard statement to make, but we 
know very well that it was stolen, because we have 
seen it ourselves in several of the cathedrals of Italy 
and France, 

But the relic that touched us most was the 
plain old sword of that stout Crusader, Godfrey of 
Bouillon — King Godfrey of Jerusalem. No blade in 
Christendom wields such enchantment as this — no 



j34 The Innocents Abroad 

blade of all that rust in the ancestral halls of Europe 
is able to invoke such visions of romance in the 
brain of him who looks upon it — none that can 
prate of such chivalric deeds or tell such brave tales 
of the warrior days of old. It stirs within a man 
every memory of the Holy Wars that has been sleep- 
ing in his brain for years, and peoples his thoughts 
with mail-clad images, with marching armies, with 
battles and with sieges. It speaks to him of Bald- 
win, and Tancred, the princely Saladin, and great 
Richard of the Lion Heart. It was with just such 
blades as these that these splendid heroes of romance 
used to segregate a man, so to speak, and leave the 
half of him to fall one way and the other half the 
other. This very sword has cloven hundreds of 
Saracen Knights from crown to chin in those old 
times when Godfrey wielded it. It was enchanted, 
then, by a genius that was under the command of 
King Solomon. When danger approached its mas- 
ter's tent it always struck the shield and clanged 
out a fierce alarm upon the startled ear of night, 
^^in times of doubt, or in fog or darkness, if it were 
drawn from its sheath It would point instantly toward 
the foe, and thus reveal the way — and it would 
also attempt to start after them of its own accord. 
A Christian could not be so disguised that it would 
not know him and refuse to hurt him — nor a Mos- 
lem so disguised that it would not leap from its 
scabbard and take his life. These statements are al] 
well authenticated in many legends that are among 



The Innocents Abroad 335 

the most trustworthy legends the good old Catholic 
monks preserve. I can never forget old Godfrey's 
sword now. I tried it on a Moslem, and clove him 
in twain like a doughnut. The spirit of Grimes was 
upon me, and if I had had a graveyard I would have 
destroyed all the infidels in Jerusalem. I wiped the 
blood off the old sword and handed it back to the 
priest — I did not want the fresh gore to obliterate 
those sacred spots that crimsoned its brightness one 
day six hundred years ago and thus gave Godfrey 
warning that before the sun went down his journey 
of life would end. 

Still moving through the gloom of the Church of 
the Holy Sepulchre we came to a small chapel, 
hewn out of the rock — a place which has been 
known as'* The Prison of Our Lord'* for many 
centuries. Tradition says that here the Saviour was 
confined just previously to the crucifixion. Under 
an altar by the door was a pair of stone stocks for 
human legs. These things are called the ** Bonds of 
Christ; ' ' and the use they were once put to has 
given them the name they now bear. 

The Greek Chapel is the most roomy, the richest 
and the showiest chapel in the Church of the Holy 
Sepulchre. Its altar, hke that of all the Greek 
churches^ is a lofty screen that extends clear across 
the chapel, and is gorgeous with gilding and pic- 
tures. The numerous lamps that hang before it are 
of gold and silver, and cost great sumSc 

But the feature of the place is a short column that 



536 The Innocents Abroad 

rises from the middle of the marble pavement of the 
chapel, and marks the exact center of the earth. 
The most reliable traditions tell us that this was 
known to be the earth's center, ages ago, and that 
when Christ was upon earth he set all doubts upon 
the subject at rest forever, by stating with his own 
lips that the tradition was correct. Remember He 
said that that particular column stood upon the 
center of the world. If the center of the v/orld 
changes, the column changes its position accordingly. 
This column has moved three different times, of its 
own accord. This is because, in great convulsions 
of nature, at three different times, masses of the 
earth — whole ranges of mountains, probably — have 
flown off into space, thus lessening the diameter of 
the earth, and changing the exact locality of its 
center by a point or two. This is a very curious 
and interesting circumstance, and is a withering 
rebuke to those philosophers who would make us 
believe that it is not possible for any portion of the 
earth to fly off into space. 

To satisfy himself that this spot was really the 
center of the earth, a skeptic once paid well for the 
privilege of ascending to the dome of the church to 
see if the sun gave him a shadow at noon. He 
came down perfectly convinced. The day was very 
cloudy and the sun threw no shadows at all ; but 
the man was satisfied that if the sun had come out 
and made shadows it could not have made any for 
him. Proofs like these are not to be set aside by 



J^l.' '^ 


1 

Ail 




^^P' 


^^^^^^H 


^ - 



THE TOMB OF ADAM 



The innocents Abroad 337 

the idle tongues of cavilers. To such as are not 
bigoted, and are willing to be convinced, they carry 
a conviction that nothing can ever shake. 

If even greater proofs than those I have men 
tioned are wanted, to satisfy the headstrong and the 
foolish that this is the genuine center of the earth, 
they are here. The greatest of them lies in the fact 
that from under this very column was taken the dusi 
from which Adam was made. This can surely be 
regarded in the light of a settler. It is not likely 
that the original first man would have been made 
from an inferior quality of earth when it was entirely 
convenient to get first quality from the world's 
center. This will strike any reflecting mind forciblyc 
That Adam was formed of dirt procured in this very 
spot is amply proven by the fact that in six thousand 
years no man has ever been able to prove that the 
dirt was not procured here whereof he was made. 

It is a singular circumstance that right under the 
roof of this same great church, and not far away 
from that illustrious column, Adam himself, the 
father of the human race, lies burled. There Is no 
question that he is actually buried in the grave which 
is pointed out as his — - there can be none — because 
it has never yet been proven that that grave is not 
the grave in which he is buried. 

The tomb of Adam 1 How touching It was, here 
in a land of strangers, far away from home, and 
friends, and all who cared for me, thus to discover 
the grave of a blood relation. True, a distant one^ 



338 The Innocents Abroad 

but still a relatione The unerring instinct of nature 
thrilled its recognition. The fountain of my filial 
affection was stirred to its profoundest depths, and 
I gave way to tumultuous emotion. I leaned upon 
a pillar and burst into tearSc I deem it no shame to 
have wept over the grave of my poor dead relative. 
Let him who would sneer at my emotion close this 
volume here, for he will find little to his taste in my 
journeyings through Holy Land. Noble old man— • 
he did not live to see me — he did not live to see 
his child. And I — I — alas, I did not live to see 
him. Weighed down by sorrow and disappoint- 
ment, he died before I was born — six thousand 
brief summers before I was born. But let us try to 
bear it with fortitude. Let us trust that he is better 
off where he is. Let us take comfort in the thought 
that his loss is our eternal gain. 

The next place the guide took us to in the holy 
church was an altar dedicated to the Roman soldier 
who was of the military guard that attended at the 
Crucifixion to keep order, and who — when the vail 
of the Temple was rent in the awful darkness that 
followed; when the rock of Golgotha was split 
asunder by an earthquake; when the artillery of 
heaven thundered, and in the baleful glare of the 
lightnings the shrouded dead flitted about the streets 
of Jerusalem — shook with fear and said, ** Surely 
this was the Son of God !'* Where this altar stands 
noWj that Roman soldier stood then, in full view of 
the crucified Saviour- in full sight and hearing of 



Tlie Innocents Abroad 53$ 

all the map'-els that were transpiring far and wide 
about the circumference of the Hill of Calvary, 
And in this self-same spot the priests of the Temple 
beheaded him for those blasphemous words he had 
spoken. 

In this altar they used to keep one of the most 
curious relics that human eyes ever looked upon — 
a thing that had power to fascinate the beholder in 
some mysterious way and keep him gazing for hours 
together. It was nothing less than the copper plate 
Pilate put upon the Saviour's cross, and upon which 
he wrote, **ThIS IS THE KiNG OF THE JeWS." I 
think St. Helena, the mother of Constantlne, found 
this wonderful memento when she was here in the 
third century. She traveled all over Palestine, and 
was always fortunate. Whenever the good old en- 
thusiast found a thing mentioned in her Bible^ Old 
or New, she would go and search for that thing, and 
never stop until she found it. If it was Adam, she 
would find Adam ; if it was the Arkj she would find 
the Ark; if it was GoHah, or Joshua, she would 
find them. She found the inscription here that I 
was speaking of, I think. She found it in this very 
spot, close to where the martyred Roman soldier 
stood. That copper plate is in one of the churches 
in Rome now. Any one can see it therCc The 
inscription is very distinct. 

We passed along a few steps and saw the altar built 
over the very spot where the good Catholic priests 
say the soldiers divided the raiment of the Saviour. 



340 The innocents Abroad 

Then we went down Into a cavern which cavilers 
say was once a cistern. It is a chapel now, how- 
ever — the Chapel of St. Helena. It is fifty-one 
feet long by forty-three wide. In it is a marble 
chair which Helena used to sit In while she superin- 
tended her workmen when they were digging and 
delving for the True Cross. In this place is an altar 
dedicated to St. Dimas, the penitent thief. A new 
bronze statue is here — - a statue of St. Helena. It 
reminded us of poor Maximilian, so lately shot. 
He presented it to this chapel when he was about to 
leave for his throne in Mexico, 

From the cistern we descended twelve steps into 
a large roughly-shaped grotto^ carved wholly out of 
the living rock, Helena blasted it out when she was 
searching for the true cross. She had a laborious 
piece of work here, but It was richly rewarded. Out 
-of this place she got the crown of thorns, the nails 
of the cross, the true cross itself, and the cross of 
the penitent thief. When she thought she had found 
everything and was about to stop, she was told in a 
dream to continue a day longer. It was very for- 
tunate. She did so, and found the cross of the 
other thief. 

The walls and roof of this grotto still weep bitter 
tears in memory of the event that transpired on 
Calvary, and devout pilgrims groan and sob when 
these sad tears fall upon them from the dripping 
rock. The monks call this apartment the ** Chapel 
of the Invention of the Cross '*-- a name which is 



The Innocents Abroad 341 

unfortunate, because it leads the ignorant to imagine 
that a tacit acknowledgment is thus made that the 
tradition that Helena found the true cross here is a 
fiction — an invention. It is a happiness to know, 
however, that intelligent people do not doubt the 
story in any of its particulars. 

Priests of any of the chapels and denominations 
in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre can visit this 
sacred grotto to weep and pray and worship the 
gentle Redeemer. Two different congregations are 
not allowed to enter at the same time, however, be- 
cause they always fight. 

Still marching through the venerable Church of 
the Holy Sepulchrej among chanting priests in 
coarse long robes and sandals; pilgrims of all 
colors and many nationalities, in all sorts of strange 
costumes ; under 'dusky arches and by dingy piers 
and columns; through a somber cathedral gloom, 
freighted with smoke and incense, and faintly starred 
with scores of candles that appeared suddenly and 
as suddenly disappeared, or drifted mysteriously 
hither and thither about the distant aisles like 
ghostly jack-o*-lanterns — we came at last to a 
small chapel which is called the * * Chapel of the 
Mocking.** Under the altar was a fragment of a 
marble column ; this was the seat Christ sat on when 
he was reviled, and mockingly made King, crowned 
with a crown of thorns and sceptered with a reed. 
It was here that they blindfolded him and struck 
him. and said in derision, '"'' Prophesy who st is tha^ 



)42 The Innocents Abroad 

smote thee.^* The tradition that this is the Identical 
spot of the mocking Is a very ancient oneo The 
guide said that Saewulf was the first to mention it, 
I do not know Saewulf, but still, I cannot well re- 
fuse to receive his evidence — none of us cano 

They showed us where the great Godfrey and his 
brother Baldwin, the first Christian Kings of Jerusa- 
lem, once lay buried by that sacred sepulchre they 
had fought so long and so valiantly to wrest from 
the hands of the infidel. But the niches that had 
contained the ashes of these renowned crusaders 
were empty. Even the coverings of their tombs 
were gone — destroyed by devout members of the 
Greek church, because Godfrey and Baldwin were 
Latin princes^ and had been reared in a Christian 
faith whose creed differed in some unimportant 
respects from theirs* 

We passed on, and halted before the tomb of 
Melchisedek f You will remember Melchisedek, no 
doubt ; he was the King who came out and levied a 
tribute on Abraham the time that he pursued Lot's 
captors to Dan, and took all their property from 
them. That was about four thousand years ago, 
and Melchisedek died shortly afterward e However, 
his tomb is in a good state of preservation c 

When one enters the Church of the Holy Sepul- 
chre, the Sepulchre itself is the first thing he desires 
to seej and really i? almost the first thing he does 
see. The next thing he has a strong yearning to 
see is the spot where the Saviour was crucified But 



The Innocents Abroad 543 

this they exhibit last. It is the crowning glory of 
the place. One is grave and thoughtful when he 
stands in the little Tomb of the Saviour — he could 
not well be otherwise in such a place — but he has 
not the slightest possible belief that ever the Lord 
lay there, and so the interest he feels in the spot is 
very, very greatly marred by that reflection. He 
looks at the place where Mary stood, in another 
part of the church, and where John stood, and Mary 
Magdalen ; where the mob derided the Lord ; where 
the angel sat; where the crown of thorns was founds 
and the true cross; where the risen Saviour ap- 
peared — he looks at all these places with interest, 
but with the same conviction he felt in the case of the 
Sepulchre, that there is nothing genuine about them, 
and that they are imaginary holy places created by 
the monks, But the place of the Crucifixion affects 
him differently. He fully believes that he is looking 
upon the very spot where the Saviour gave up his 
lifCo He remembers that Christ was very celebrated, 
long before he came to Jerusalem ; he knows that 
his fame was so great that crowds followed him all 
the time ; he is aware that his entry into the city 
produced a stirring sensation, and that his reception 
was a kind of ovation ; he cannot overlook the fact 
that when he was crucified there were very many in 
Jerusalem who believed that he was the true Son ot 
God. To publicly execute such a personage was 
sufficient in itself to make the locality of the execu- 
tion a memorable place for ages ; added to this, the 



544 The Innocents Abroa«5l 

storm, the darkness, the earthquake, the rending ot 
the vail of the Temple, and the untimely waking of 
the dead, were events calculated to fix the execution 
and the scene of it in the memory of even the most 
thoughtless witness. Fathers would tell their sons 
about the strange affair, and point out the spot ; the 
sons would transmit the story to their children, and 
thus a period of three hundred years would easily 
be spanned* — at which time Helena came and built 
a church upon Calvary to commemorate the death 
and burial of the Lord and preserve the sacred place 
in the memories of men ; since that time there has 
always been a church there» It is not possible that 
there can be any mistake about the locality of the 
Crucifixion. Not half a dozen persons knew where 
they buried the Saviour, perhaps, and a burial is not 
a starthng event, anyhow; therefore, we can be 
pardoned for unbelief in the Sepulchre, but not 
m the place of the Crucifixion. Five hundred 
years hence there will be no vestige of Bunker Hill 
Monument left, but America will still know where 
the battle was fought and where Warren fell. The 
crucifixion of Christ was too notable an event in 
Jerusalem, and the Hill of Calvary made too cele- 
brated by it, to be . forgotten in the short space of 
three hundred years., I climbed the stairway in the 
church which brings one to the top of the small in- 
closed pinnacle of rock, and looked upon the place 



* The thought is Mr. Prime's, not mine, and is full of good sense. 
\ borrowed it from his *' Tent Life."— M. T. 



The Innocents Abroad 345 

wnere the true cross once stood, with a far more 
absorbing interest than I had ever felt in anything 
earthly before. I could not believe that the three 
holes in the top of the rock were the actual ones the 
crosses stood in, but I felt satisfied that those crosses 
had stood so near the place now occupied by them, 
that the few feet of possible difference were a matter 
of no consequence. 

When one stands where the Saviour was crucified, 
he finds it all he can do to keep it strictly before his 
mind that Christ was not crucified in a Catholic 
church. He must remind himself every now and 
then that the great event transpired in the open air, 
and not in a gloomy, candle-lighted cell in a little 
corner of a vast church, up stairs — a small cell all 
bejeweled and bespangled with flashy ornamenta- 
tion, in execrable taste. 

Under a marble altar like a table, is a circular 
hole in the marble floor, corresponding with the one 
just under it in which the true cross stood. The 
first thing every one does is to kneel down and take 
a candle and examine this hole. He does this 
strange prospecting with an amount of gravity that 
can never be estimated or appreciated by a man who 
has not seen the operation. Then he holds his 
candle before a richly engraved picture of the 
Saviour, done on a massy slab of gold, and wonder- 
fully rayed and starred with diamonds, which hangs 
above the hole within the altar, and his solemnity 
changes to lively admiration. He rises and faces the 



546 The Innocents Abroad 

finely wrought figures of the Saviour and the male- 
factors uplifted upon their crosses behind the altar, 
and bright with a metallic luster of many colors. 
He turns next to the figures close to them of the 
Virgin and Mary Magdalen ; next to the rift in the 
living rock made by the earthquake at the time of 
the crucifixion, and an extension of which he had 
seen before in the wall of one of the grottoes below ; 
he looks next at the show-case with a figure of the 
Virgin in it, and is amazed at the princely fortune in 
precious gems and jewelry that hangs so thickly 
about the form as to hide it like a garment almost. 
All about the apartment the gaudy trappings of the 
Greek church offend the eye and keep the mind on 
the rack to remember that this is the Place of the 
Crucifixion — Golgotha — the Mount of Calvary. 
And the last thing he looks at is that which was also 
the first — the place where the true cross stood. 
That will chain him to the spot and compel him to 
look once more, and once again, after he has satis- 
fied all curiosity and lost all interest concerning the 
other matters pertaining to the locality. 

And so I close my chapter on the Church of the 
Holy Sepulchre — the most sacred locality on earth 
to millions and millions of men, and women, and 
children, the noble and the humble, bond and free. 
In its history from the first, and in its tremendous 
associations, it is the most illustrious edifice in 
Christendom. With all its clap-trap side-shows and 
unseemly impostures of every kind, it is still grand, 



The Innocents Abroad 34? 

reverend, venerable — for a god died there; for 
fifteen hundred years its shrines have been wet with 
the tears of pilgrims from the earth's remotest con- 
fines; for more than two hundred, the most gallant 
knights that ever wielded sword wasted their lives 
away in a struggle to seize it and hold it sacred from 
infidel pollution. Even in our own day a war, that 
cost millions of treasure and rivers of blood, was 
fought because two rival nations claimed the sole 
right to put a new dome upon it. History is full of 
this old Church of the Holy Sepulchre — full of 
blood that was shed because of the respect and the 
veneration in which men held the last resting-place 
of the meek and lowly, the mild and gentle Prince 
of Peace I 



CHAPTER XXVIL 

WE were standing in a narrow street, by the 
Tower of Antonio. ** On these stones that 
are crumbling away,** the guide said, *'the Saviour 
sat and rested before taking up the cross. This is 
the beginning of the Sorrowful Way, or the Way of 
Grief.'* The party took note of the sacred spot, 
and moved on. We passed under the ** Ecce Homo 
Arch,'* and saw the very window from which Pilate's 
wife warned her husband to have nothing to do with 
the persecution of the Just Man. This window is in 
an excellent state of preservation, considering its 
great age. They showed us where Jesus rested the 
second time, and where the mob refused to give him 
up, and said, ** Let his blood be upon our heads, 
and upon our children's children forever.*' The 
French Catholics are building a church on this spot, 
and with their usual veneration for historical relics, 
are incorporating into the new such scraps of ancient 
walls as they have found there. Further on, we saw 
the spot where the fainting Saviour fell under the 
weight of his cross. A great granite column of 
some ancient temple lay there at the time, and the 

(348) 



I 



The Innocents Abroad! 349 

heavy cross struck it such a blow that it broke in 
two in the middle. Such was the guide's story 
when he halted us before the broken column. 

We crossed a street, and came presently to the 
former residence of Stc Veronica. When the 
Saviour passed there, she came out, full of womanly 
compassion, and spoke pitying words to him, un- 
daunted by the hootings and the threatenings of the 
mob, and wiped the perspiration from his face with 
her handkerchief. We had heard so much of Stc 
Veronica, and seen her picture by so many masters, 
that it was like meeting an old friend unexpectedly 
to come upon her ancient home in Jerusalem. The 
strangest thing about the incident that has made her 
name so famous, is, that when she wiped the per- 
spiration away, the print of the Saviour's face re- 
mained upon the handkerchief, a perfect portrait, 
and so remains unto this day. We knew this, 
because we saw this handkerchief in a cathedral in 
Paris, in another in Spain, and in two others in 
Italy. In the Milan cathedral it costs five francs to 
see it, and at St. Peter's, at Rome, it is almost im- 
possible to see it at any price. No tradition is so 
amply verified as this of Stc Veronica and her hand- 
kerchief. 

At the next corner we saw a deep indentation in the 
hard stone masonry of the corner of a house, but 
might have gone heedlessly by it but that the guide 
said it was made by the elbow of the Saviour j who 
stumbled here and felL Presently we came to jus'! 



350 The Innocents Abroad 

such another indentation in a stone wall. The guide 
said the Saviour fell here, also, and made this de- 
pression with his elbow. 

There were other places where the Lord fell, and 
others where he rested ; but one of the most curious 
landmarks of ancient history we found on this morn- 
ing walk through the crooked lanes that lead toward 
Calvary, was a certain stone built into a house — a 
stone that was so seamed and scarred that it bore a 
sort of grotesque resemblance to the human face. 
The projections that answered for cheeks were worn 
smooth by the passionate kisses of generations of 
pilgrims from distant lands. We asked ** Why?" 
The guide said it was because this was one of ** the 
very stones of Jerusalem * * that Christ mentioned 
when he was reproved for permitting the people to 
cry ** Hosannah!** when he made his memorable 
entry into the city upon an ass. One of the pil- 
grims said, ** But there is no evidence that the stones 
did cry out — Christ said that if the people stopped 
from shouting Hosannah, the very stones would do 
jit/' The guide was perfectly serene. He said, 
calmly, ** This is one of the stones that would have 
cried out.** It was of little use to try to shake this 
fellow's simple faith — it was easy to see that. 

And so we came at last to another wonder, of 
deep and abiding interest — -the veritable house 
where the unhappy wretch once lived who has been 
celebrated in song and story for more than eighteen 
hundred years as the Wandering Jew, On the 



The Innocents Abroad 351 

memorable day of the Crucifixion he stood !n this 
old doorway with his arms akimbo, looking out upon 
the struggling mob that was approaching, and when 
the weary Saviour would have sat down and rested 
him a moment, pushed him rudely away and said, 
"Move on!" The Lord said, ** Move on, thou^ 
likewise,** and the command has never been revoked 
from that day to this. All men know how that the 
miscreant upon whose head that just curse fell has 
roamed up and down the wide world, for ages and 
ages, seeking rest and never finding it — -courting 
death but always in vain — longing to stop, in city, 
in wilderness, in desert solitudes, yet hearing always 
that relentless warning to march — march on ! They 
say — do these hoary traditions — that when Titus 
sacked Jerusalem and slaughtered eleven hundred 
thousand Jews in her streets and byways, the Wan- 
dering Jew was seen always in the thickest of the 
fight, and that when battle-axes gleamed in the air, 
he bowed his head beneath them; when swords 
flashed their deadly lightnings, he sprang in their 
way; he bared his breast to whizzing javelins, to 
hissing arrows, to any and to every weapon that 
promised death and forgetfulness, and rest. But it 
was useless — he walked forth out of the carnage 
without a wound. And it is said that five hundred 
years afterward he followed Mahomet when he car- 
ried destruction to the cities of Arabia, and then 
turned against him, hoping in this way to win the 
death of a traitor. His calculations were wrong 

23- 



3 $2 The innocents Abroad 

agaiur No quarter was given to any living creature 
but one, and that was the only one of all the host 
that did not want it. He sought death five hundred 
years later, in the wars of the Crusades, and offered 
himself to famine and pestilence at Ascalon. He 
escaped again — he could not die. These repeated 
annoyances could have at last but one effect — they 
shook his confidence. Since then the Wandering 
Jew has carried on a kind of desultory toying with 
the most promising of the aids and implements of 
destruction, but with small hope, as a general thing. 
He has speculated some in cholera and railroads, 
and has taken almost a lively interest in infernal 
machines and patent medicines. He is old, now, 
and grave, as becomes an age like his; he indulges 
in no light amusements save that he goes sometimes 
to executions, and is fond of funerals. 

There is one thing he cannot avoid ; go where he 
will about the world, he must never fail to report in 
Jerusalem every fiftieth year. Only a year or two 
ago he was here for the thirty-seventh time since 
Jesus was crucified on Calvary. They say that many 
old people, who are here now, saw him then, and had 
seen him before. He looks always the same — old, 
and withered, and hollow-eyed, and listless, save 
that there is about him something which seems to 
suggest that he is looking for some one, expecting 
some one — the friends of his youth, perhaps. But 
the most of them are dead, noWc He always pokes 
about the old streets looking lonesome, making his 



The innocents Abroaa 553 

mark on a wall here and there, and eying the oldest 
buildings with a sort of friendly half interest ; and 
he sheds a few tears at the threshold of his ancient 
dwelling, and bitter, bitter tears they are. Then he 
c:ollects his rent and leaves again. He has been seen 
-standing near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on 
many a starlight: night, for he has cherished an idea 
for many centuries that if he could only enter there, 
he could rest. But when he approaches, the doors 
slam to with a crash, the earth trembles, and all the 
lights in Jerusalem burn a ghastly blue ! Pie does 
this every fifty years, just the same. It is hopeless, 
but then it is hard to break habits one has been 
eighteen hundred years accustomed to. The old 
tourist is far away on his wanderings, now. How 
he must smile to see a pack of blockheads like us^ 
galloping about the world, and looking wise, and 
imagining we are finding out a good deal about it 1 
He must have a consuming contempt for the ignorant, 
complacent asses that go skurrying about the world 
in these railroading days and call it traveling. 

When the guide pointed out where the Wandering 
Jew had left his familiar mark upon a wall, I was 
filled with astonishment. It read t 
«'S.T.— 1860 — X." 

All I have revealed about the Wandering Jew can 
be amply proven by reference to our guide. 

The mighty Mosque of Omar, and the paved court 
around it, occupy a fourth part of Jerusalem. They 
are upon Mount Moriahj, where King Solomon's 



554 The Knnocents Abroad 

Temple stood. This Mosque is the holiest place 
the Mohammedan knows, outside of Mecca. Up to 
within a year or two past, no Christian could gain 
admission to it or its court for love or money. But 
the prohibition has been removed, and we entered 
freely for bucksheesh. 

I need not speak of the wonderful beauty and the 
exquisite grace and symmetry that have made this 
Mosque so celebrated — because I did not see them„ 
One cannot see such things at an instant glance - - 
one frequently only finds out how really beautiful a 
really beautiful woman is after considerable acquaint- 
ance with her; and the rule applies to Niagara Falls, 
to majestic mountains, and to mosques — especially 
to mosques. 

The great feature of the Mosque of Omar is the 
prodigious rock in the center of its rotunda. It was 
ipon this rock that Abraham came so near offering 
xip his son Isaac — this, at least, is authentic — it i* 
yery much more to be relied on than most of thl 
ih'aditions, at any rate. On this rock, also, the angel 
stood and threatened Jerusalem, and David persuaded 
him to spare the city. Mahomet was well acquainted 
with this stone. From it he ascended to heaven. 
The stone tried to follow him, and if the angel Gabriel 
had not happened by the merest good luck to be 
there to seize it, it would have done it. Very few 
people have a grip like Gabriel — the prints of his 
monstrous fingers, two inches deep, are to be seen 
In that rock to-day 



The Iimocents Abroad %%$ 

This rock, large as it is, is suspended in the air. 
It does not touch anything at all. The guide said 
so. This is very wonderfuL In the place on it 
where Mahomet stood, he left his footprints in the 
solid stone, I should judge that he wore about 
eighteens. But what I was going to say, when I 
spoke of the rock being suspended, was, that in the 
floor of the cavern under it they showed us a slab 
which they said covered a hole which was a thing of 
extraordinary interest to all Mohammedans, because 
that hole leads down to perdition, and every soul that 
is transferred from thence to Heaven must pass up 
through this orifice. Mahomet stands there and lifts 
them out by the hair. All Mohammedans shave 
their heads, but they are careful to leave a lock of 
hair for the Prophet to take hold of. Our guide ob- 
served that a good Mohammedan would consider 
himself doomed to stay with the damned forever if 
he were to lose his scalp-lock and die before it grew 
again. The most of them that I have seen ought to 
stay with the damned, anyhow, without reference to 
how they were barbered. 

For several ages no woman has been allowed to 
enter the cavern where that important hole is. The 
reason is that one of the sex was once caught there 
blabbing everything she knew about what was going 
on above ground ^ to the rapscallions in the infernal 
regions down below. She carried her gossiping to 
Buch an extreme that nothing could be kept private 
^ nothinp- could be done or said on earth but every- 



356 The Innocents Abroad 

body in perdition knew all about It before the sun 
went down. It was about time to suppress this 
woman*s telegraph, and It was promptly done. Her 
breath subsided about the same time. 

The inside of the great mosque is very showy with 
variegated marble walls and with windows and in- 
scriptions of elaborate mosaic. The Turks have their 
sacred relics, Hke the Catholics The guide showed 
us the veritable armor worn by the great son-In-Iaw 
and successor of Mahomet^ and also the buckler of 
Mahomet*s uncle. The great iron railing which sur- 
rounds the rock was ornamented in one place with a 
thousand rags tied to its open work. These are to 
remind Mahomet not to forget the worshipers who 
placed them there. It is considered the next best 
thing to tying threads around his finger by way of 
reminders. 

Just outside the mosque is a miniature temple, 
which marks the spot where David and Goliah used 
to sit and judge the people.* 

Everywhere about the Mosque of Omar are por* 
tions of pillars, curiously wrought altars^ and frag-» 
ments of elegantly carved marble — precious remains 
of Solomon's Temple. These have been dug from 
all depths in the soil and rubbish of Mount Moriah, 
and the Moslems have always shown a disposition to 
preserve them with the utmost care. At that por- 



• A pilgrim informs me that, it was not David and Goliah, but David 
ind SauL I stick to my '>wn statement — the guide told me, and hni 

tJsght tc knowo 



The Innocents Abroad 357 

tion of the ancient wall of Solomon's Temple which 
is called the Jew's Place of Wailing, and where the 
Hebrews assemble every Friday to kiss the venerated 
stones and weep over the fallen greatness of Zion^ 
anyone can see a part of the unquestioned and un- 
disputed Temple of Solomon, the same consisting of 
three or four stones lying one upon the other, each 
of which is about twice as long as a seven-octave 
piano, and about as thick as such a piano is high. 
But, as I have remarked before, it is only a year or 
two ago that the ancient edict prohibiting Christian 
rubbish like ourselves to enter the Mosque of Omar 
and see the costly marbles that once adorned the 
inner Temple was annulled. The designs wrought 
upon these fragments are all quaint and peculiar, and 
so the charm of novelty is added to the deep interest 
they naturally inspire. One meets with these vener- 
able scraps at every turn, especially in the neighbor- 
ing Mosque el Aksa, into whose inner walls a very 
large number of them are carefully built for preser- 
vation. These pieces of stone, stained and dusty 
with age, dimly hint at a grandeur we have all been 
taught to regard as the princeliest ever seen on earth ; 
and they call up pictures of a pageant that is familiar 
to all imaginations — camels laden with spices and 
treasure -— beautiful slaves, presents for Solomon's 
harem — a long cavalcade of richly caparisoned 
beasts and warriors — and Sheba's Queen in the van 
of this vision of ** Oriental magnificence.'^ These 
elegant fragments bear a richer interest than the 



358 The Innocents Abroad 

solemn vastness of the stones the Jews kiss in the 
Place of Wailing can ever have for the heedless 
sinner, 

Down in the hollow ground, underneath the olives 
and the orange trees that flourish in the court of the 
great Mosque, is a wilderness of pillars — remains of 
the ancient Temple ; they supported it. There are 
ponderous archways down there, also, over which 
the destroying *' plough '* of prophecy passed harm- 
less. It is pleasant to know we are disappointed, in 
that we never dreamed we might see portions of the 
actual Temple of Solomon, and yet experience no 
shadow of suspicion that they were a monkish hum- 
bug and a fraud. 

We are surfeited with sights^ Nothing has any 
fascination for us, now, but the Church of the Holy 
Sepulchre^ We have been there every day, and 
have not grown tired of it; but we are weary of 
everything else. The sights are too many. They 
swarm about you at every step ; no single foot of 
ground in all Jerusalem or within its neighborhood 
seems to be without a stirring and important history 
of its own. It is a very relief to steal a walk of a 
hundred yards without a guide along to talk unceas- 
ingly about every stone you step upon and drag you 
back ages and ages to the day when it achieved 
celebrity. 

It seems hardly real when I find myself leaning 
for a moment on a ruined v/all and looking listlessly 
jown into the historic pool of Bethesda. I did not 



The Innocents Abroad 55S 

think such things could be so crowded together as to 
diminish their interests But, in serious truths we 
have been drifting about, for several days, using 
our eyes and our ears from a sense of duty than any 
higher and worthier reason. And too often we have 
been glad when it was time to go home and be dis- 
tressed no more about illustrious localities. 

Our pilgrims compress too much into one day^ 
One can gorge sights to repletion as well as sweet- 
meats. Since we breakfasted, this morning, we have 
seen enough to have furnished us food for a yearns 
reflection if we could have seen the various objects 
in comfort and looked upon them deliberately. We 
visited the pool of Hezekiah, where David saw 
Uriah's wife coming from the bath and fell in love 
with her. 

We went out of the city by the Jaffa gate, and of 
course were told many things about its Tower of 
Plippicus. 

We rode across the Valley of Hinnom, between 
two of the Pools of Gihon, and by an aqueduct 
built by Solomon, which still conveys water to the 
city. We ascended the Hill of Evil Counsel, where 
Judas received his thirty pieces of silver, and we also 
lingered a moment under the tree a venerable tradi- 
tion says he hanged himself on. 

We descended to the canon again, and then the 
guide began to give name and history to every bank 
and boulder we came to: **This was the Field of 
Blood ; these cuttings in the rocks were shrines and 



56C The innocents Abroad 

temples of Moloch; here they sacrificed children; 
yonder is the Zion Gate ; the Tyropean Valley ; the 
Hill of Ophel ; here is the junction of the Valley of 
Jehoshaphat — on your right is the Well of Job." 
We turned up Jehoshaphat. The recital went on. 

*'This is the Mount of Olives; this is the Hill of 
Offense ; the nest of huts is the Village of Siloam ; 
here, yonder, everywhere, is the King's Garden; 
under this great tree Zacharias, the high priest, was 
murdered ; yonder is Mount Moriah and the Temple 
wall ; the tomb of Absalom ; the tomb of St. James ; 
the tomb of Zacharias; beyond, are the Garden of 
Gethsem.ane and the tomb of the Virgin Mary ; here 
ts the Pool of Siloam, and — '* 

We said we would dismount, and quench our 
thirst, and rest. We were burning up with the heat. 
We were failing under the accumulated fatigue of days 
and days of ceaseless marching. All were willing. 

The Pool is a deep^ walled ditch, through which a 
clear stream of water runs, that comes from undei 
Jerusalem somewhere, and passing through the 
Fountain of the Virgin, or being supplied from it, 
reaches this place by way of a tunnel of heavy 
masonry. The famous pool looked exactly as it 
looked in Solomon's time, no doubt, and the same 
dusky, Oriental women, came down in their old 
Oriental way and carried off jars of the water on 
their heads, just as they did three thousand years 
ago, and just as they will do fifty thousand years 
hence if any of them are still left on earth. 



The innocents Abroad ^i 

We went away from there and stopped at the 
Fountain of the Virginc But the water was not good^ 
and there was no comfort or peace anywhere, or 
account of the regiment of boys and girls and beg^ 
gars that persecuted us all the time for bucksheesh<, 
The guide wanted us to give them some money, and 
we did it ; but when he went on to say that they 
were starving to death we could not but feel that we 
had done a great sin in throwing obstacles in the way 
of such a desirable consummation, and so we tried 
to collect it back, but it could not be done^ 

We entered the Garden of GethsemanCj and we 
visited the Tomb of the Virgin j both of which we 
had seen before. It is not meet that I should speak 
of them now. A more fitting time will come. 

I cannot speak now of the Mount of Olives or its 
view of Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, and the mountains 
of Moab ; nor of the Damascus Gate or the tree that 
was planted by King Godfrey of Jerusalem. One 
ought to feel pleasantly when he talks of these 
things. I cannot say anything about the stone col« 
umn that projects over Jehoshaphat from the Temple 
wall like a cannon, except that the Moslems believe 
Mahomet will sit astride of it when he comes to judge 
the world. It is a pity he could not judge it from 
some roost of his own in Mecca j without trespass- 
ing on our holy ground. Close by Is the Golden 
Gate, in the Temple wall — a gate that was an 
elegant piece of sculpture in the time of the Temple, 
and f.s even so yet From it, in ancient times, the 



362 The Innocents Abroad 

Jewish High Priest turned loose the scapegoat and 
let him flee to the wilderness and bear away his 
twelvemonth load of the sins of the people. If 
they were to turn one loose now, he would not get 
as far as the Garden of Gethsemane, till these miser- 
able vagabonds here would gobble him up,* sins and 
all. They wouldn*t care. Mutton-chops and sin is 
good enough living for thent The Moslems watch 
the Golden Gate with a jealous eye, and an anxious 
one, for they have an honored tradition that when 
Ft falls, Islamism will fall, and with it the Ottoman 
Empire. It did not grieve me any to notice that the 
old gate was getting a little shaky. 

We are at home again. We are exhausted. The 
sun has roasted us, almost. 

We have full comfort in one reflection, however. 
Our experiences in Europe have taught us that in 
time this fatigue will be forgotten ; the heat will be 
forgotten ; the thirst, the tiresome volubility of the 
guide, the persecutions of the beggars — and then^ 
all that will be left will be pleasant memories of 
Jerusalem, memories we shall call up with always in- 
creasing interest as the years go by, memories which 
some day will become all beautiful when the last 
annoyance that incumbers them shall have faded out 
of our minds never again to return. Schoolboy days 
are no happier than the days of after life, but we look 
back upon them regretfully because we have for- 



• Favorite pilgrim expression. 



The toitficents Abioad 303 

gotten our punishments at school, and how we 
grieved when our marbles were lost and our kites de- 
stroyed — because we have forgotten all the sorrows 
and privations of that canonized epoch and remem- 
ber only its orchard robberies, its wooden sword 
pageants, and its fishing holidays. We are satisfied.. 
We cai*: wait^ Our reward will come. To us, 
Jerusalem and to-day*s experiences will be an en 
chanted memory a year hence— -a memory whicl' 
money could not buy from us. 



CHAPTER XXVIIL 

WE cast up the account. It footed up pretty 
fairly. There was nothing more at Jerusalem 
to be seen, except the traditional houses of Dives and 
Lazarus of the parable^ the Tombs of the Kings, and 
those of the Judges ; the spot where they stoned one 
of the disciples to death, and beheaded another; the 
room and the table made celebrated by the Last Sup- 
per ; the fig-tree that Jesus withered ; a number of 
historical places about Gethsemane and the Mount of 
Olives, and fifteen or twenty others in different por- 
tions of the city itself. 

We were approaching the end. Human nature 
asserted itself, now. Overwork and consequent ex- 
haustion began to have their natural effect. They 
began to master the energies and dull the ardor of 
the party. Perfectly secure now against failing to 
accomplish any detail of the pilgrimage, they felt 
\ike drawing In advance upon the holiday soon to 
be placed to their credit. They grew a little lazy. 
They were late to breakfast and sat long at dinner. 
Thirty or forty pilgrims had arrived from the ship, 
Of the short routes, and much swapping of gossip 



The Innocents Abroad 365 

had to be indulged in. And in hot afternoons, they 
showed a strong disposition to lie on the cool divans 
m the hotel and smoke and talk about pleasant ex- 
periences of a month or so gone by — for even thus 
early do episodes of travel which were sometimes 
annoying, sometimes exasperating, and full as often 
of no consequence at all when they transpired, begin 
to rise above the dead level of monotonous remin- 
iscences and become shapely landmarks in one*s 
memory. The fog-whistle, smothered among a 
million of trifling sounds, is not noticed a block 
away, in the city, but the sailor hears it far at sea, 
whither none of those thousands of trifling sounds 
can reach. When one is in Rome, all the domes are 
alike ; but when he has gone away twelve miles, the 
city fades utterly from sight and leaves St„ Peter's 
swelling above the level plain like an anchored bal- 
loon. When one is traveling in Europe, the daily 
incidents seem all alike ; but when he has placed them 
all two months and two thousand miles behind him, 
those that were worthy of being remembered are 
prominent, and those that were really insignificant 
have vanished. This disposition to smoke and idle 
and talk was not well. It was plain that it must not 
be allowed to gain ground. A diversion must be 
tried, or demoralization would ensue. The Jordan, 
Jericho, and the Dead Sea were suggested. The 
remainder of Jerusalem must be left unvisited, for a 
Httle while. The journey was approved at once, 
New life stirred m every pulse, la the saddle — 



366 The innocents Abroad 

abroad on thxe plains — sleeping in beds bounded 
only by the horizon : fancy was at work with these 
things in a moment. It was painful to note how 
readily these town-bred men had taken to the free 
life of the camp and the desert. The nomadic in- 
stinct is a human instinct; it was born with Adam 
and transmitted through the patriarchs, and after 
thirty centuries of steady effort, civilization has not 
educated it entirely out of us yet. It has a charm 
which, once tasted, a man will yearn to taste again. 
The nomadic instinct cannot be educated out of an 
Indian at alh 

The Jordan journey being approved, our dragoman 
was notified. 

At nine in the morning the caravan was before the 
hotel door and we were at breakfast. There was 
a commotion about the place. Rumors of war and 
bloodshed were flying everywhere. The lawless 
Bedouins in the Valley of the Jordan and the deserts 
down by the Dead Sea were up in arms, and were 
going to destroy all comers. They had had a battle 
with a troop of Turkish cavalry and defeated them ; 
several men killed. They had shut up the inhab- 
itants of a village and a Turkish garrison in an old 
fort near Jericho, and were besieging them. They 
had marched upon a camp of our excursionists by 
the Jordan, and the pilgrims only saved their lives by 
stealing away and flying to Jerusalem under whip 
and spur in the darkness of the night. Another of 
our parties had been fired on from an ambush and 



The Innocents Abroad 567 

then attacked in the open day. Shots were fired on 
both sides. Fortunately, there was no bloodshed. 
We spoke with the very pilgrim who had fired one of 
the shots, and learned from his own lips how, in this 
imminent deadly peril, only the cool courage of the 
pilgrims, their strength of numbers and imposing 
display of war material, had saved them from utter 
destruction. It was reported that the Consul had 
requested that no more of our pilgrims should go to 
the Jordan while this state of things lasted; and 
further, that he was unwilling that any more should 
go, at least without an unusually strong military 
guard. Here was trouble. But with the horses at 
the door and everybody aware of what they were 
there for, what would you have done? Acknowl- 
edged that you were afraid, and backed shamefully 
out? Hardly. It would not be human nature^ 
where there were so many women. You would 
have done as we did : said you were not afraid of a 
million Bedouins — -and made your will and pro- 
posed quietly to yourself to take up an unostenta- 
tious position in the rear of the processionc 

I think we must all have determined upon the 
same line of tactics, for it did seem as if we never 
would get to Jericho, I had a notoriously slow 
horse, but somehow I could not keep him in the rear» 
to save my neck. He was forever turning up in the 
lead. In such cases I trembled a little, and got down 
to fix my saddle. But it was not of any use. The 

others all got down to fix their saddles^ too. I neve? 
24" 



568 The Innocents Abroad 

saw such a time with saddles. It was the first time 
any of them had got out of order in three weeks, 
and now they had all broken down at once. I tried 
walking, for exercise — I had not had enough in 
Jerusalem searching for holy places. But it was a 
failure. The whole mob were suffering for exercise, 
and it was not fifteen minutes till they were all on 
foot and I had the lead again. It was very dis- 
couraging. 

This was all after we got beyond Bethany, We 
stopped at the village of Bethany, an hour out from 
Jerusalem. They showed us the tomb of Lazarus. 
I had rather live in it than in any house in the town. 
And they showed us also a large '* Fountain of 
Lazarus,'* and in the center of the village the 
ancient dwelling of Lazarus. Lazarus appears to 
have been a man of property. The legends of the 
Sunday-schools do him great injustice; they give 
one the impression that he was poor. It is because 
they get him confused with that Lazarus who had no 
merit but his virtue, and virtue never has been as re- 
spectable as money. The house of Lazarus is a 
three-story edifice, of stone masonry, but the accu- 
mulated rubbish of ages has buried all of it but the 
upper story. We took candles and descended to 
the dismal cell-like chambers where Jesus sat at meat 
with Martha and Mary, and conversed with them 
about their brother We could not but look upon 
these old dingy apartments with a more than com- 
mon interest. 



The Innocents Abroad 369 

We had had a gh'mpse, from a mountain top, of 
the Dead Sea, lying like a blue shield in the plain of 
the Jordan, and now we were m.arching down a close^ 
flaming, rugged, desolate defile, where no living 
creature could enjoy life, except, perhaps, a sal- 
amander. It was such a dreary, repulsive, horrible 
solitude! It was the '* wilderness *' where John 
preached, with camel's hair about his loins — rai- 
ment enough — -but he never could have got his 
locusts and wild honey here. We were moping 
along down through this dreadful place, every man 
in the rear. Our guards — two gorgeous young 
Arab sheiks, with cargoes of swords, guns, pistols, 
and daggers on board — were loafing ahead. 
' Bedouins! '* 

Every man shrunk up and disappeared in his 
clothes like a mud-turtle. My first impulse was to 
dash forward and destroy the Bedouins. My second 
was to dash to the rear to see if there were any com- 
ing in that direction. I acted on the latter impulse. 
So did all the others. If any Bedouins had ap- 
proached us, then, from that point of the compass, 
they would have paid dearly for their rashness. We 
all remarked that, afterwards. There would have 
been scenes of riot and bloodshed there that no pen 
could describe. I know that, because each man told 
what he would have done, individually ; and such a 
medley of strange and unheard-of inventions of 
cruelty you could not conceive of. One man said 
he had calmly made up his. mind to perish where hf 



J70 The Innocents Abroad 

stood, if need be, but never yield an inch; lie was 
going to wait, with deadly patience, till he could 
count the stripes upon the first Bedouin's jacket, and 
then count them and let him have it. Another was 
going to sit still till the first lance reached within an 
inch of his breast, and then dodge it and seize ito I 
forbear to tell what he was going to do to that 
Bedouin that owned it. It makes my blood run 
cold to think of it. Another was going to scalp such 
Bedouins as fell to his share, and take his bald- 
headed sons of the desert home with him alive for 
trophies. But the wild-eyed pilgrim rhapsodist was 
silent. His orbs gleamed with a deadly light, but 
his lips moved not. Anxiety grew, and he was 
questioned. If he had got a Bedouin, what would 
he have done with him- — shot him? He smiled a 
smile of grim contempt and shook his head. Would 
he have stabbed him? Another shake. Would he 
have quartered him — flayed him ? More shakes* 
Oh ! horror, what would he have done? 

*' Eat him!" 

Such was the awful sentence that thundered from 
his lips. What was grammar to a desperado hke 
that? I was glad in my heart that I had been spared 
these scenes of malignant carnage. No Bedouins 
attacked our terrible rear. And none attacked the 
front. The newcomers were only a re-enforcement 
of cadaverous Arabs, in shirts and bare legs, sent 
far ahead of us to brandish rusty guns, and shout 
and brag, and carry on like lunatics, and thus scare 



The Innocents Abroad 371 

away all bands of marauding Bedouins that might 
lurk about our path What a shame it is that armed 
white Christians must travel under guard of vermin 
like this as a protection against the prowling vaga- 
bonds of the desert — those sanguinary outlaws who 
are always going to do something desperate, but 
never do \t I may as well mention here that on our 
whole trip we saw no Bedouins, and had no more 
use for an Arab guard than we could have had for 
patent-leather boots and white kid gloves. The 
Bedouins that attacked the other parties of pilgrims 
so fiercely were provided for the occasion by the 
Arab guards of those parties^ and shipped from 
Jerusalem for temporary service as Bedouins. They 
met together in full view of the pilgrims, after the 
battle, and took lunch, divided the bucksheesh ex- 
torted in the season of danger, and then accompanied 
the cavalcade home to the city \ The nuisance of an 
Arab guard is one which is created by the Sheiks 
and the Bedouins together, for mutual profit, it is 
said, and no doubt there is a good deal of truth in it. 

We visited the fountain the prophet Elisha sweet- 
ened (it is sweet yet) ; where he remained some 
time and was fed by the ravens. 

Ancient Jericho is not very picturesque as a ruin 
When Joshua marched around it seven times, some 
three thousand years ago, and blew it down with his 
trumpet, he did the work so well and so completely 
that he hardly left enough of the city to cast a 
shadow. The curse pronounced against the rebuild^ 



572 The innocents Abroad 

ing of it has never been removed. One king, hold 
ing the curse in light estimation, made the attempt, 
but was stricken sorely for his presumption. Its 
site will always remain unoccupied; and yet it is 
one of the very best locations for a town we have 
seen in all Palestine. 

At two in the morning they routed us out of bed 
— another piece of unwarranted cruelty, another 
stupid effort of our dragoman to get ahead of a 
rival- It was not two hours to the Jordan. How- 
ever, we were dressed and under way before any one 
thought of looking to see what time it was, and so 
we drowsed on through the chill night air and 
dreamed of camp fires, warm beds, and other com- 
fortable things. 

There was no conversation. People do not talk 
when they are cold, and wretched, and sleepy. We 
nodded in the saddle, at times, and woke up with a 
start to find that the procession had disappeared in 
the gloom ^ Then there was energy and attention to 
business until its dusky outlines came in sight again. 
Occasionally the order was passed in a low voice 
down the Hne: "Close up — close up! Bedouins 
iurk here, everywhere!" What an exquisite shud- 
der it sent shivering along one*s spine ! 

We reached the famous river before four o'clock, 
and the night was so black that we could have ridden 
Into it without seeing it. Some of us were in an 
unhappy frame of mind. We waited and waited for 
daylight, but it did not come. Finally we went 



The Innocents Abroad 373 

away in the dark and slept an hour on the ground, 
in the bushes, and caught cold. It was a costly 
nap, on that account, but otherwise it was a paying 
investment because it brought unconsciousness of 
the dreary minutes and put us in a somewhat fitter 
mood for a first glimpse of the sacred river. 

With the first suspicion of dawn, every pilgrim took 
off his clothes and waded into the dark torrent, singing : 

"On Jordan's stormy banks I stand. 
And cast a wistful eye 
To Canaan's fair and happy land. 
Where my possessions lie.'* 

But they did not sing long. The water was so 
fearfully cold that they w^ere obliged to stop singing 
and scamper out again. Then they stood on the 
bank shivering, and so chagrined and so grieved, 
that they merited honest compassion. Because 
another dream, another cherished hope, had failed. 
They had promised themselves all along that they 
would cross the Jordan where the Israelites crossed 
it when they entered Canaan from their long pil- 
grimage in the desert. They would cross where the 
twelve stones were placed in memory of that great 
event. While they did it they would picture to 
themselves that vast army of pilgrims marching 
through the cloven waters, bearing the hallowed ark 
of the covenant and shouting hosannahs, and singing 
songs of thanksgiving and praise. Each had prom- 
ised himself that he would be the first to cross. 
They were at the goal of their hopes at last, but the 
current was too swift, the water was too cold ! 



374 The Innocents Abroad 

It was then that Jack did them a servicCc With 
that engaging recklessness of consequences which is 
natural to youth, and so proper and so seemly, as 
well, he went and led the way across the Jordan, and 
all was happiness again. Every individual waded 
over, then, and stdod upon the further bank. The 
water was not quite breast deep, anywhere. If it 
had been more, we could hardly have accomplished 
the feat, for the strong current would have swept us 
down the stream, and we would have been exhausted 
and drowned before reaching a place where we could 
make a landing. The mam object compassed, the 
drooping, miserable party sat down to wait for the 
sun again, for all wanted to see the water as well as 
feel ito But it was too cold a pastime. Some cans 
were filled from the holy river, some canes cut from 
its banks, and then we mounted and rode reluctantly 
away to keep from freezing to death. So we saw 
the Jordan very dimly. The thickets of bushes that 
bordered its banks threw their shadows across its 
shallow, turbulent waters (** stormy,** the hymn 
makes them, which is rather a complimentary stretch 
of fancy), and we could not judge of the width of 
the stream by the eye. We knew by our wading 
experience, however, that many streets in America 
are double as wide as the Jordan, 

Daylight came, soon after we got under way, and 
in the course of an hour or two we reached the 
Dead Sea. Nothing grows in the flat, burning desert 
mround it but weeds and the Dead Sea apple the 



The Innocents Abroad J75 

poets say is beautiful to the eye, but crumbles to 
ashes and dust when you break it. Such as wc 
found were not handsome, but they were bitter to 
the taste. They yielded no dust. It was because 
they were not ripe, perhaps. 

The desert and the barren hills gleam painfully m 
the sun, around the Dead Sea, and there is no 
pleasant thing or living creature upon it or about its 
borders to cheer the eye. It is a scorching, arid, 
repulsive solitude. A silence broods over the scene 
that is depressing to the spirits. It makes one think 
of funerals and death 

The Dead Sea is small. Its waters are very clear, 
and it has a pebbly bottom and is shallow for some 
distance out from the shores. It yields quantities 
of asphaltum ; fragments of it lie all about its banks ; 
this stuff gives the place something of an unpleasant 
smell. 

All our reading had taught us to expect that the 
first plunge into the Dead Sea would be attended 
with distressing results — our bodies would feel as if 
they were suddenly pierced by millions of red-hot 
needles ; the dreadful smarting would continue for 
hours ; we might even look to be blistered from head 
to foot, and suffer miserably for many days. We 
were disappointed. Our eight sprang in at the same 
time that another party of pilgrims did, and nobody 
screamed once. None of them ever did complain 
of anything more than a slight pricking sensation in 
places where their skin was abraded, and then only 



376 The innocents Abroad 

for a short time. My face smarted for a couple of 
hours, but it was partly because I got it badly sun- 
burned while I was bathing, and stayed in so long 
that it became plastered over with salt. 

No, the water did not bHster us; it did not cover 
us with a slimy ooze and confer upon us an atrocious 
fragrance ; it was not very slimy ; and I could not 
discover that we smelt really any worse than we 
have always smelt since we have been in Palestine. 
It was only a different kind of smell, but not con- 
spicuous on that account, because we have a great 
deal of variety in that respect. We didn't smell, 
there on the Jordan, the same as we do in Jerusa- 
lem; and we don't smell in Jerusalem just as we did 
in Nazareth, or Tiberias, or Cesarea Philippi, or any 
of those other ruinous ancient towns in Galilee. 
No, we change all the time, and generally for the 
worse We do our own washing. 

It was a funny bath. We could not sink. One 
could stretch himself at full length on his back, with 
his arm.s on his breast, and all of his body above a 
line drawn from the corner of his jaw past the middle 
of his side, the middle of his leg and through his 
ankle bone, would remain out of water. He could 
lift his head clear out if he chose. No position 
can be retained long; you lose your balance and 
whirl over, first on your back and then on your 
face, and so on. You can lie comfortably, on your 
back, with your head out, and your legs out from 
your knees down, by steadying yourself with your 



The innocents Abroad 37? 

hands. You can sit, with your knees drawn up to 
your chin and your arms clasped around them, but 
you are bound to turn over presently, because you 
are topheavy in that position. You can stand up 
straight in water that is over your head, and from 
the middle of your breast upward you will not be 
wet. But you cannot remain sOo The water will 
soon float your feet to the surface., You cannot 
swim on your back and make any progress of any 
consequence, because your feet stick away above 
the surface, and there is nothing to propel yourself 
with but your heels. If you swim on your face, 
you kick up the v/ater like a stern-wheel boat. You 
make no headway. A horse is so topheavy that he 
can neither swim nor stand up in the Dead Sea. He 
turns over on his side at once. Some of us bathed 
for more than an hour, and then came out coated 
with salt till we shone like icicles. We scrubbed it 
off with a coarse towel and rode off with a splendid 
brand-new smell, though it was one which was not 
any more disagreeable than those we have been for 
several weeks enjoying. It was the variegated vil- 
lainy and novelty of it that charmed usc Salt 
crystals glitter in the sun about the shores of the 
lake. In places they coat the ground like a brilliant 
crust of ice. 

When I was a boy I somehow got the impressioix 
that the river Jordan was four thousand miles long 
and thirty-five miles wide. It is only ninety miles 
long, and so crooked that a man does not know 



578 The Innocents Abroad 

which side of it he is on half the time. In going 
ninety miles it does not get over more than fifty 
miles of ground. It is not any wider than Broad- 
way in New York. There is the Sea of Galilee and 
this Dead Sea — neither of them twenty miles long 
or thirteen wide. And yet when I was in Sunday- 
school I thought they were sixty thousand miles in 
diameter^ 

Travel and experience mar the grandest pictures 
and rob us of the most cherished traditions of our 
boyhood. Well, let them go. I have already seen 
the Empire of King Solomon diminish to the size of 
the State of Pennsylvania; I suppose I can bear the 
reduction of the seas and the river. 

We looked everywhere, as we passed along, but 
never saw grain or crystal of Lot's wife^ It was a 
great disappolntmentc For many and many a year 
we had known her sad story, and taken that interest 
in her which misfortune always inspires. But she 
was gone. Her picturesque form no longer looms 
above the desert of the Dead Sea to remind the 
tourist of the doom that fell upon the lost cities. 

I cannot describe the hideous afternoon's ride 
from the Dead Sea to Mars Saba. It oppresses me 
yet, to think of it. The sun so pelted us that the 
tears ran down our cheeks once or twice. The 
ghastly, treeless, grassless, breathless canons smoth- 
ered us as if we had been in an oven^ The sun had 
positive weight to It, I think. Not a man could sit 
erect under it All drooped low in the saddles. 



ITie Innocents Abroad 9!^ 

John preached in this "' Wilderness" ! It must have 
been exhausting work. What a very heaven the 
massy towers and ramparts of vast Mars Saba looked 
to us when we caught a first glimpse of them ! 

We stayed at this great convent all night, guests 
of the hospitable priests. Mars Saba, perched upon 
a crag, a human nest stuck high up against a per- 
pendicular mountain wall, is a world of grand 
masonry that rises, terrace upon terrace, away above 
your head, like the terraced and retreating colonnades 
one sees in fanciful pictures of Belshazzar's Feast 
and the palaces of the ancient Pharaohs. No other 
human dwelling is near. It was founded many ages 
ago by a holy recluse who lived at first in a cave in 
the rock — a cave which is inclosed in the convent 
walls now, and was reverently shown to us by the 
priests. This recluse, by his rigorous torturing of 
his flesh, his diet of bread and water ^ his utter with- 
drawal from all society and from the vanities of the 
world, and his constant prayer and saintly contem- 
plation of a skull, inspired an emulation that brought 
about him many disciples. The precipice on the 
opposite side of the caflon is well perforated with 
the small holes they dug in the rock to live in. The 
present occupants of Mars Saba, about seventy in 
number, are all hermits. They wear a coarse robe^ 
an ugly, brimless stovepipe of a hat, and go with- 
out shoes. They eat nothing whatever but bread 
and salt , they drink nothing but water. As long as 
they live they can never go outside the walls, ot 



380 I'he Innocents Abroad 

look upon a woman — for no woman is permitted to 
enter Mars Saba, upon any pretext whatsoever. 

Som.e of those men have been shut up there for 
tliirty years c In all that dreary time they have not 
heard the laughter of a child or the blessed voice of 
a woman; they have seen no human tears, no 
human smiles ; they have known no human joys, no 
wholesome human sorrows. In their hearts are no 
memories of the past, in their brains no dreams of 
the future. All that is lovable, beautiful, worthy^ 
they have put far away from them ; against all things 
that are pleasant to look upon, and all sounds that 
are music to the ear, they have barred their massive 
doors and reared their relentless walls of stone for- 
ever„ They have banished the tender grace of life 
and left only the sapped and skinny mockery. 
Their lips are lips that never kiss and never sing ; 
their hearts are hearts that never hate and never 
love ; their breasts are breasts that never swell with 
the sentiment, ** I have a country and a flag." 
They are dead men who walk. 

I set down these first thoughts because they are 
natural — not because they are just or because it is 
right to set them down. It is easy for bookmakers 
to say ** I thought so and so as I looked upon such 
and such a scene " — when the truth is, they thought 
all those fine things afterward. One's first thought 
;;s not likely to be strictly accurate, yet it is no 
crime to think it and none to write it down, subject 
to modification by later experience These hermits 



The Innocents Abroad 38I 

are dead men, in several respects, but not in all; 
and it is not proper that, thinking ill of them at 
first, I should go on doing so, or, speaking ill of 
them, I should reiterate the words and stick to them, 
No, they treated us too kindly for that. There is 
something human about them somewhere. They 
knew we were foreigners and Protestants, and not 
likely to feel admiration or much friendliness toward 
them. But their large charity was above consider- 
ing such things. They simply saw in us men who 
were hungry, and thirsty, and tired, and that was 
sufficient. They opened their doors and gave us 
welcome. They asked no questions, and they made 
no self-righteous display of their hospitality. They 
fished for no compliments. They moved quietly 
about, setting the table for us, making the beds, 
and bringing water to wash in, and paid no heed 
when we said it was wrong for them to do that when 
we had men whose business it was to perform such 
offices. We fared most comfortably, and sat late at 
dinner. We walked all over the building with the 
hermits afterward, and then sat on the lofty battle- 
ments and smoked while we enjoyed the cool air, the 
wild scenery, and the sunset. One or two chose 
cosy bedrooms to sleep in, but the nomadic instinct 
prompted the rest to sleep on the broad divan that 
extended around the great hall, because it seemed 
like sleeping out of doors, and so was more cheery 
and inviting. It was a royal rest we had. 

When we got up to breakfast in the morning, we 



382 The Innocents Abroad 

were new men. For all this hospitality no strict 
charge was made. We could give something if we 
chose ; we need give nothing, if we were poor or if 
we were stingy. The pauper and the miser are as 
free as any in the Catholic convents of Palestine. I 
have been educated to enmity toward everything 
that is Catholic, and sometimes, in consequence of 
this, I find it much easier to discover Catholic faults 
than Catholic merits. But there is one thing I feel 
no disposition to overlook, and no disposition to 
forget; and that is, the honest gratitude I and all 
pilgrims owe to the Convent Fathers in Palestine. 
Their doors are always open, and there is always a 
welcome for any worthy man who comes, whether 
he comes in rags or clad in purple. The Catholic 
convents are a priceless blessing to the poor. A 
pilgrim without money, whether he be a Protestant 
or a Catholic, can travel the length and breadth of 
Palestine, and in the midst of her desert wastes find 
wholesome food and a clean bed every night, in 
these buildings. Pilgrims in better circumstances 
are often stricken down by the sun and the fevers of 
the country, and then their saving refuge is the con- 
vento Without these hospitable retreats, travel in 
Palestine would be a pleasure which none but the 
strongest men could dare to undertake. Our party, 
pilgrims and all, will always be ready and always 
willing te touch glasses and drink health, prosperity, 
and long life to the Convent Fathers of Palestine. 
So., rested and refreshed ^ we fell into line and 



I 



The Innocents Abroad. 383 

filed away over the barren mountains of Judea, and 
along rocky ridges and through sterile gorges, where 
eternal silence and solitude reigned. Even the scat- 
tering groups of armed shepherds we met the after- 
noon before, tending their flocks of long-haired 
goats^ were wanting here. We saw but two living 
creatures. They v/ere gazelles of '* soft- eyed " 
notoriety. They looked like very young kids, but 
they annihilated distance like an express train. I have 
not seen animals that moved faster, unless I might 
say it of the antelopes of our own great plains. 

At nine or ten in the morning v/e reached the 
Plain of the Shepherds, and stood in a walled garden 
of olives where the shepherds were watching their 
flocks by night, eighteen centuries ago, when the 
multitude of angels brought them the tidings that 
the Saviour was born. A quarter of a mile away 
was Bethlehem of Judea, and the pilgrims took 
some of the stone wall and hurried on. 

The Plain of the Shepherds is a desert, paved 
with loose stones, void of vegetation, glaring in the 
fierce sun. Only the music of the angels it knew 
once could charm its shrubs and flowers to life again 
and restore its vanished beauty. No less potent 
enchantment could avail to work this miracle, 

In the huge Church of the Nativity, in Bethlehem, 
built fifteen hundred years ago by the inveterate St. 
Helena, they took us below ground, and into a 
grotto cut in the living rock. This was the 
"manger" where Christ was born. A silver star 



584 The innocents A&road 

set in the floor bears a Latin inscription to that 
effect. It is polished with the kisses of many gener- 
ations of worshiping pilgrims. The grotto was 
tricked out in the usual tasteless style observable in 
a.\] the holy places of Palestine. As in the Church 
of the Holy Sepulchre, envy and uncharitableness 
were apparent here. The priests and the members 
of the Greek and Latin churches cannot come by 
the same corridor to kneel in the sacred birthplace 
of the Redeemer, but are compelled to approach 
and retire by different avenues, lest they quarrel 
and fight on this holiest ground on earth. 

I have no ** meditations/* suggested by this spot 
where the very first ** Merry Christmas!'* was ut- 
tered in all the world, and from whence the friend 
of my childhood, Santa Claus, departed on his first 
journey to gladden and continue to gladden roaring 
firesides on wintry mornings in many a distant land 
forever and forever. I touch, with reverent finger, 
the actual spot where the infant Jesus lay, but I 
think — nothing. 

You cannot think in this place any more than you 
can in any other in Palestine that would be likely to 
inspire reflection. Beggars, cripples, and monks 
compass you about, and make you think only of 
bucksheesh when you would rather think of some- 
thing more in keeping with the character of the spot. 

I was glad to get away, and glad when we had 
walked through the grottoes where Eusebius wrote^ 
and Jerome fasted^ and Joseph prepared for the 



The Innocents Abroad 385 

flight into Egypt, and the dozen other distinguished 
grottoes, and knew we were done. The Church of 
the Nativity is almost as well packed with exceed- 
ing holy places as the Church of the Holy Sepul- 
chre itself. They even have in it a grotto wherein 
twenty thousand children were slaughtered by Herod 
when he was seeking the life of the infant Saviour, 

We went to the Milk Grotto, of course — a cavern 
where Mary hid herself for a while before the flight 
into Egypt. Its walls were black before she en- 
tered, but in suckling the Child, a drop of her milk 
fell upon the floor and instantly changed the dark- 
ness of the walls to its own snowy hue. We took 
many little fragments of stone from here, because 
it is well known in all the East that a barren woman 
hath need only to touch her lips to one of these and 
her failing will depart from her. We took many 
specimens, to the end that we might confer happi- 
ness upon certain households that we wot of. 

We got away from Bethlehem and its troops of 
beggars and relic-peddlers in the afternoon, and 
after spending some little time at Rachel* s tomb, 
hurried to Jerusalem as fast as possible. I never 
was so glad to get home again before. I never have 
enjoyed rest as I have enjoyed it during these last 
few hours. The journey to the Dead Sea, the Jor- 
dan, and Bethlehem was short, but it was an ex- 
hausting one. Such roasting heat, such oppressive 
solitude, and such dismal desolation cannot surely 
exist elsewhere on earth - And suck fatigue ? 



386 The Innocents Abroad 

The commonest sagacity warns me that I ought 
to tell the customary pleasant lie, and say I tore 
myself reluctantly away from every noted place in 
Palestine. Everybody tells that, but with as little 
ostentation as I may, I doubt the word of every he 
who tells it. I could take a dreadful oath that I 
have never heard any one of our forty pilgrims say 
anything of the sort, and they are as worthy and as 
sincerely devout as any that come here. They 
will say it when they get home, fast enough, but 
why should they not? They do not wish to array 
themselves against all the Lamartines and Grimeses 
in the world. It does not stand to reason that men 
are reluctant to leave places where the very life is 
almost badgered out of them by importunate swarms 
of beggars and peddlers who hang in strings to 
one's sleeves and coat-tails and shriek and shout in 
his ears and horrify his vision with the ghastly sores 
and malformations they exhibit. One is glad to get 
away. I have heard shameless people say they were 
glad to get away from Ladies' Festivals where they 
were importuned to buy by bevies of lovely young 
ladies. Transform those houris into dusky hags 
and ragged savages, and replace their rounded 
forms with shrunken and knotted distortions, their 
soft hands with scarred and hideous deformities, and 
the persuasive music of their voices with the dis- 
cordant din of a hated language, and then see how 
much lingering reluctance to leave could be mustered. 
No. it is the neat thing to say you were reluctant, 



The Unnocents Abroad ^$7 

and then append the profound thoughts that ** strug- 
gled for utterance** in your brain; but it is the true 
thing to say you were not reluctant, and found it 
impossible to think at all — though in good sooth 
it is not respectable to say it, and not poetical, 
either. 

We do not think, in the holy places ; we think in 
bed, afterward, when the glare, and the noise, and 
the confusion are gone, and in fancy we revisit 
alone the solemn monuments of the past, and 
summon the phantom pageants of an age that has 
passed away 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

WE visited all the holy places about Jerusalem 
which we had left unvisited when we jour- 
neyed to the Jordan, and then, about three o'clock 
one afternoon, we fell into procession and marched 
out at the stately Damascus gate, and the walls of 
Jerusalem shut us out forever. We paused on the 
summit of a distant hill and took a final look and 
made a final farewell to the venerable city which had 
been such a good home to us. 

For about four hours we traveled down hill con- 
stantly. We followed a narrow bridle-path which 
traversed the beds of the mountain gorges, and 
when we could we got out of the way of the long 
trains of laden camels and asses, and when we could 
not we suffered the misery of being mashed up 
against perpendicular walls of rock and having our 
legs bruised by the passing freight. Jack was caught 
two or three times, and Dan and Moult as often. 
One horse had a heavy fall on the sHppery rocks, 
and the others had narrow escapes. However, this 
was as good a road as we had found in Palestine, 
and possibly even the best, and so there was not 
much grumbling. 



The Innocents Abroad 3^9 

Sometimes, in the glens, we came upon luxuriant 
orchards of figs, apricots, pomegranates, and such 
things, but oftener the scenery was rugged, moun- 
tainous, verdureless, and forbidding. Here and 
there, towers were perched high up on acclivities 
which seem.ed almost inaccessible. This fashion is 
as old as Palestine itself, and was adopted in ancient 
times for security against enemies. 

We crossed the brook which furnished David the 
stone that killed Goliah, and, no doubt, we looked 
upon the very ground whereon that noted battle was 
fought. We passed by a picturesque old gothic 
ruin whose stone pavements had. rung to the armed 
heels of many a valorous Crusader, and we rode 
through a piece of country which we were told once 
knew Samson as a citizen ^ 

We stayed all night with the good monks at the 
convent of Ramleh, and in the morning got up and 
galloped the horses a good part of the distance from 
there to Jaffa, or Joppa, for the plain was as level as 
a floor and free from stones, and besides this was 
our last march in Holy Land. These two or three 
hours finished, we and the tired horses could have 
rest and sleep as long as we wanted it. This was the 
plain of which Joshua spoke when he said,** Sun, 
stand thou still on Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley 
of Ajalon.'* As we drew near to Jaffa, the boys 
spurred up the horses and indulged in the excite- 
ment of an actual race — an experience we had hardly 
had since we raced on donkeys in the Azores islands 



390 The Innocents Abroad 

We came finally to the noble grove of orange 
trees in which the Oriental city of Jaffa lies buried ; 
we passed through the walls, and rode again down 
narrow streets and among swarms of animated rags, 
and saw other sights and had other experiences we 
had long been familiar with. We dismounted, for 
the last time, and out in the offing, riding at anchor, 
we saw the ship ! I put an exclamation point there 
because we felt one when we saw the vessel. The 
long pilgrimage was ended, and somehow we seemed 
to feel glad of it. 

[For description of- Jaffa, see Universal Gazet- 
teer.] Simon the Tanner formerly lived here. We 
went to his house. All the pilgrims visit Simon the 
Tanner's house. Peter saw the vision of the beasts 
let down in a sheet when he lay upon the roof of 
Simon the Tanner's house. It was from Jaffa that 
Jonah sailed when he was told to go and prophesy 
against Nineveh, and, no doubt, it was not far from 
the town that the whale threw him up when he dis- 
covered that he had no ticket. Jonah was dis- 
obedient, and of a fault-finding, complaining dispo- 
sition, and deserves to be lightly spoken of, almost. 
The timbers used in the construction of Solomon's 
temple were floated to Jaffa in rafts, and the narrow 
opening in the reef through which they passed to 
the shore is not an inch wider or a shade less danger- 
ous to navigate than it was then. Such is the sleepy 
nature of the population Palestine's only good sea- 
port has now and always had. Jaffa has a history 



The innocents Abroad f9l 

and a stirring one. It will not be discovered any 
where in this book. If the reader will call at the 
circulating library and mention my name, he will be 
furnished with books which will afford him the 
fullest information concerning Jaffa. 

So ends the pilgrimage. We ought to be glad 
that we did not make it for the purpose of feasting 
our eyes upon fascinating aspects of nature, for we 
should have been disappointed — at least at this 
season of the year. A writer in ** Life in the Holy 
Land ** observes: 

** Monotonous and uninviting as much of the Holy Land will appear 
to persons accustomed to the almost constant verdure of flowers, ample 
streams, and varied surface of our own country, we must remember that 
its aspect to the Israelites after the weary march of forty years through 
the desert must have been very different.'* 

Which all of us will freely grant. But it truly h 
** monotonous and uninviting," and there is no 
sufficient reason for describing it as being other\vise. 

Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I 
think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are 
barren, they are dull of color, they are unpicturesque 
in shape. The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed 
with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about 
it of being sorrowful and despondent. The Dead 
Sea and the Sea of Galilee sleep in the midst of a 
vast stretch of hill and plain wherein the eye rests 
upon no pleasant tint, no striking object, no soft 
picture dreaming in a purple haze or mottled with 
the shadows of the clouds. Every outline is harsh, 
every feature is distinct, there is no perspective - 



392 The Innocents Abroad 

distance works no enchantment here. It is a hope* 
less, dreary, heart-broken land. 

Small shreds and patches of it must be very beau- 
tiful in the full flush of spring, however, and all the 
more beautiful by contrast with the far-reaching 
desolation that surrounds them on every side. I 
would like much to see the fringes of the Jordan in 
spring time, and Shechem, Esdraelon, Ajalon, and 
the borders of Galilee — but even then these spots 
v/ould seem mere toy gardens set at wide intervals 
in the waste of a limitless desolation. 

Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it 
broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields 
and fettered its energies. Where Sodom and Gomor- 
rah reared their domes and towers, that solemn sea 
now floods the plain, in whose bitter waters no 
living thing exists — over whose waveless surface the 
blistering air hangs motionless and dead — about 
whose borders nothing grows but weeds, and scat- 
tering tufts of cane, and that treacherous fruit that 
promises refreshment to parching lips, but turns to 
ashes at the touch. Nazareth is forlorn ; about that 
ford of Jordan where the hosts of Israel entered the 
Promised Land with songs of rejoicing, one finds 
only a squalid camp of fantastic Bedouins of the 
desert; Jericho the accursed lies a moldering ruin 
to-day, even as Joshua's miracle left it more than 
three thousand years ago ; Bethlehem and Bethany, 
in their poverty and their humiliation, have nothing 
about them now to remind one that they once knew 



The Innocents Abroad 393 

the high honor of the Saviour's presence; the hal- 
lowed spot where the shepherds watched their flocks 
by night, and where the angels sang Peace on earth, 
good will to men, is untenanted by any living crea- 
ture, and unblessed by any feature that is pleasant 
to the eye. Renowned Jerusalem itself, the stateliest 
name in history, has lost all its ancient grandeur, 
and is become a pauper village ; the riches of Solo- 
mon are no longer there to compel the admiration 
of visiting Oriental queens; the wonderful temple 
which was the pride and the glory of Israel is gone, 
and the Ottoman crescent is lifted above the spot 
where, on that most memorable day in the annals of 
the world, they reared the Holy Cross. The noted 
Sea of Galilee, where Roman fleets once rode at 
anchor and the disciples of the Saviour sailed in 
their ships, was long ago deserted by the devotees 
of war and commerce, and its borders are a silent 
wilderness ; Capernaum is a shapeless ruin ; Magdala 
is the home of beggared Arabs; Bethsaida and 
Chorazin have vanished from the earth, and the 
** desert places ** round about them where thousands 
of men once listened to the Saviour's voice and ate the 
miraculous bread sleep in the hush of a solitude that 
is inhabited only by birds of prey and skulking foxes.. 

Palestine is desolate and unlovely. And why 
should it be otherwise? Can the curse of the Deity 
beautify a land ? 

Palestine is no more of this work-day world. It 
is sacred to poetry and tradition — it is dream-land 



CHAPTER XXX. 

IT was worth a kingdom to be at sea again. It 
was a relief to drop all anxiety whatsoever — all 
questions as to where we should go ; how long we 
should stay ; whether it were worth while to go or 
not ; all anxieties about the condition of the horses ; 
all such question as ** Shall we ever get to water?" 
** Shall we ever lunch?'* ** Ferguson, how many 
more million miles have we got to creep under this 
awful sun before we camp?'* It was a relief to cast 
all these torturing little anxieties far away — ropes 
of steel they were, and every one with a separate 
and distinct strain on it — and feel the temporary 
contentment that is born of the banishment of all 
care and responsibility. We did not look at the 
compass; we did not care, now, where the ship 
went to, so that she went out of sight of land as 
quickly as possible. When I travel again, I wish to 
go in a pleasure ship. No amount of money could 
have purchased for us, in a strange vessel and among 
unfamiliar faces, the perfect satisfaction and the 
sense of being at home again which we experienced 
when we stepped on board the Quaker Cityy — out 

<394) 



The Innocents Abroad 39S 

own ship — after this wearisome pilgrimage. It is a 
something we have felt always when we returned to 
her, and a something we had no desire to sell. 

We took off our blue woolen shirts, our spurs 
and heavy boots, our sanguinary revolvers and our 
buckskin-seated pantaloons, and got shaved, and 
came out in Christian costume once more. All but 
Jack, who changed all other articles of his dress, but 
clung to his traveling pantaloons. They still pre- 
served their ample buckskin seat intact ; and so his 
short pea-jacket and his long, thin legs assisted to 
make him a picturesque object whenever he stood 
on the forecastle looking abroad upon the ocean 
over the bows. At such times his father*s last 
injunction suggested itself to me. He said : 

** Jack, my boy, you are about to go among a 
brilliant company of gentlemen and ladies, who are 
refined and cultivated, and thoroughly accomplished 
in the manners and customs of good society. Listen 
to their conversation, study their habits of life, and 
learn. Be polite and obliging to all, and considerate 
towards every one's opinions, failings, and preju- 
dices. Command the just respect of all your fellow- 
voyagers, even though you fail to win their friendly 
regard. And Jack — don't you ever dare, while 
you live, appear in public on those decks in fair 
weather, in a costume unbecoming your mother's 
drawing-room I** 

It would have been worth any price if the father 
of this hopef^'i youth could have stepped on board 



396 The Innocents Abroad 

some time, and seen him standing high on the fore' 
castle, pea-jacket, tasseled red fez, buckskin patch 
and all, — placidly contemplating the ocean — a rare 
spectacle for anybody's drawing-room. 

After a pleasant voyage and a good rest, we drew 
near to Egypt, and out of the mellowest of sunsets 
we saw the domes and minarets of Alexandria rise 
Into view. As soon as the anchor was down. Jack 
and I got a boat and went ashore. It was night by 
this time, and the other passengers were content to 
remain at home and visit ancient Egypt after break- 
fast. It was the way they did at Constantinople. 
They took a lively interest in new countries, but 
their schoolboy impatience had worn off, and they 
had learned that it was wisdom to take things easy 
and go along comfortably — these old countries do 
not go away in the night ; they stay till after break- 
fast. 

When we reached the pier we found an army of 
Egyptian boys with donkeys no larger than them- 
selves, waiting for passengers — for donkeys are the 
omnibuses of Egypt. We preferred to walk, but 
we could not have our own way. The boys 
crov/ded about us, clamored around us, and slewed 
their donkeys exactly across our path, no matter 
which way we turned. They were good-natured 
rascals, and so were the donkeys. We mounted, 
and the boys ran behind us and kept the donkeys in 
a furious gallop, as is the fashion at Damascus. I 
believe I would rather ride a donkey than any beast 



The Innocents Abroad 397 

in the worid He goes briskly, he puts on no airsj 
he IS docile, though opinionated. Satan himself 
could not scare him, and he is convenient — very 
convenient. When you are tired riding you can 
rest your feet on the ground and let him gallop from 
under you. 

We found the hotel and secured rooms, and were 
happy to know that the Prince of Wales had stopped 
there once. They had it everywhere on signs. No 
other princes had stopped there since, till Jack and 
I came. We went abroad through the town, then, 
and found it a city of huge commercial buildings, 
and broad, handsome streets brilliant with gaslight. 
By night it was a sort of reminiscence of Paris. 
But finally Jack found an ice-cream saloon, and that 
closed investigations for that evening. The weather 
eras very hot, it had been many a day since Jack 
h^d seen ice-cream, and so it was useless to talk of 
leaving the saloon till it shut up. 

In the morning the lost tribes of America came 
ashore and infested the hotels and took possession 
of all the donkeys and other open barouches that 
offered. They went in picturesque procession to 
the American Consul's; to the great gardens; to 
Cleopatra's Needles; to Pompey's Pillar; to the 
palace of the Viceroy of Egypt ; to the Nile ; to the 
superb groves of date-palms. One of our most 
inveterate relic-hunters had his hammer with him, 
and tried to break a fragment off the upright Needle 
and could not do it; he tried the prostrate one 



398 The Innocents Abroad 

and failed; he borrowed a heavy sledge-hammer 
from a mason and failed again. He tried Pompey's 
Pillar, and this baffled him. Scattered all about the 
mighty monolith were sphinxes of noble counte- 
nance, carved out of Egyptian granite as hard as 
blue steel, and whose shapely features the wear of 
five thousand years had failed to mark or mar. The 
relic-hunter battered at these persistently, and 
sweated profusely over his work. He might as well 
have attempted to deface the moon. They regarded 
him serenely with the stately smile they had worn 
so long, and which seemed to say, ** Peck away, 
poor insect ; we were not made to fear such as you ; 
in tenscore dragging ages we have seen more of 
your kind than there are sands at your feet ; have 
they left a blemish upon us?'* 

But I am forgetting the Jaffa Colonists. At Jaffa 
we had taken on board some forty members of a 
very celebrated community. They were male and 
female ; babies, young boys and young girls ; young 
married people, and some who had passed a shade 
beyond the prime of life. I refer to the ** Adams 
Jaffa Colony." Others had deserted before. We 
left in Jaffa Mr. Adams, his wife, and fifteen unfor- 
tunates who not only had no money but did not 
know where to turn or whither to go. Such was 
the statement made to us. Our forty were miserable 
enough in the first place, and they lay about the 
decks seasick all the voyage, which about completed 
their misery, I take itc However, one or two young 



The Innocents Abroad 399 

men remained upright, and by constant persecution 
we wormed out of them some little information. 
They gave it reluctantly and in a very fragmentary" 
condition, for, having been shamefully humbugged 
by their prophet, they felt humiliated and unhappy. 
In such circumstances people do not like to talk. 

The colony was a complete fiasco, I have already 
said that such as could get away did so, from time 
to time. The prophet Adams — once an actor, 
then several other things, afterward a Mormon and 
a missionary, always an adventurer— remains at 
Jaffa with his handful of sorrowful subjects, Thi 
forty we brought away with us were chiefly destitute 
though not all of them. They wished to get ti^ 
Egypt' What might become of them then they di^ 
not know and probably did not care — anything tf 
get away from hated Jaffa. They had little to hop<» 
for ; because after many appeals to the sympathiei 
of New England, made by strangers of Boston^, 
through the newspapers, and after the establishmen)^ 
of an office there for the reception of moneyed con- 
tributions for the Jaffa colonists, one dollar was 
subscribed. The consul-general for Egypt showed 
me the newspaper paragraph which mentioned the 
circumstance, and mentioned also the discontinuance 
of the effort and the closing of the office. It was 
evident that practical New England was not sorn'' to 
be rid of such visionaries and was not in the l^ast 
inclined to hire anybody to bring them back to here 

Still, to get to Egypt was something, in the eyes of 
26- 



400 The Innocents Abroad 

the unfortunate colonists, hopeless as the prospect 
seemed of ever getting further. 

Thus circumstanced, they landed at Alexandria 
from our ship. One of our passengers, Mr. Moses 
S. Beach, of the New York SuUy inquired of the 
consul-general what it would cost to send these 
people to their home in Maine by the way of Liver- 
pool, and he said fifteen hundred dollars in gold 
would do it. Mr. Beach gave his check for the 
money, and so the troubles of the Jaffa colonists 
were at an end.* 

Alexandria was too much like a European city to 
be novel, and we soon tired of it. We took the cars 
and came up here to ancient Cairo, which is an 
Oriental city and of the completest pattern. There 
is little about it to disabuse one's mind of the error 
if he should take it into his head that he was in the 
heart of Arabia. Stately camels and dromedaries, 
swarthy Egyptians, and likewise Turks and black 
Ethiopians, turbaned, sashed, and blazing in a rich 
variety of Oriental costumes of all shades of flashy 
colors, are what one sees on every hand crowding 
the narrow streets and the honeycombed bazaars. 
We are stopping at Shepherd's Hotel, which is the 
worst on earth except the one I stopped at once in 



* It was an unselfish act of benevolence; it was done without any 
ostentation, and has never been mentioned in any newspaper, I think. 
Therefore it is refreshing to learn now, several months after the above 
narrative was written, that another man received all the credit of this 
rescue of the colonists. Such is life. 



The Innocents Abroad 401 

a small town in the United States. It is pleasant to 
read this sketch in my note-book, now, and know 
that I can stand Shepherd's Hotel, sure, because I 
have been in one just like it in America and 
survived : 

I stopped at the Benton House. It used to be a good hotel, but 
that proves nothing — I used to be a good boy, for that matter. Both 
of us have lost character of late years. The Benton is not a good 
hotel. 

The Benton lacks a very great deal of being a good hotel. Perdition 
is full of better hotels than the Benton. 

It was late at night when I got there, and I told the clerk I would 
like plenty of lights, because I wanted to read an hour or two. When 
I reached No, 15 with the porter (we came along a dim hall that was 
clad in ancient carpeting, faded, worn out in many places, and patched 
with old scraps of oil cloth — a hall that sank under one's feet, and 
creaked dismally to every footstep) he struck a light — two inches of 
sallow, sorrowful, consumptive tallow candle, that burned blue, and 
sputtered, and got discouraged and went out. The porter Ht it again, 
and I asked if that was all the light the clerk sent. He said, *' Oh no, 
I've got another one here," and he produced another couple of inches 
of tallow candle. I said, ** Light them both — I'll have to have one 10 
see the other by." He did it, but the result was drearier than darkness 
itself. He was a cheery, accommodating rascal. He said he wouia 
go " somewheres " and steal a lamp. I abetted and encouraged him in 
his criminal design. I heard the landlord get after him in the hall ten 
minutes afterward. 

** Where are you going with that lamp?** 

" Fifteen wants it, sir." 

"Fifteen! why he's got a double lot of candles — does the man 
want to illuminate the house? — does he want to get up a torchlight 
procession? — what is he up to, any how? " 

** He don't like them candles — says he wants a lamp.'* 

"Why, what in the nation does — why I never heard of such i 
thing? What on earth can he want with that lamp? '* 

" Well, he only wants to read — that's what he says.*' 

" Wants to read, does he? — ain't satisfied with a thousand candleSj, 
26»» 



402 The Innocents Abroad 

but has to have a lamp ! — I do wonder what the devil that fellow wants 
that lamp for? Take him another candle, and then if — " 

" But he wants the lamp — says he'll burn the d — d old house down 
if he don't get a lamp 1 " [A remark which I never made.] 

'•I'd hke to see him at it once. Well, you talce it along — but I 
swear it beats my time, though — and see if you can't find out what m 
the very nation he wants with that lamp." 

And he went off growling to himself and still wondering and wonder- 
iiig over the unaccountable conduct of No. 15. The lamp was a good 
one, but it revealed some disagreeable things — a bed in the suburbs of 
a desert of room — a bed that had hills and valleys in it, and you'd have 
to accommodate your body to the impression left in it by the man that 
slept there last, before you could He comfortably; a carpet that had seen 
better days; a melancholy washstand in a remote comer, and a dejected 
pitcher on it sorrowing over a broken nose; a looking-glass split across 
the center, which chopped your head off at the chin and made you look 
Hke some dreadful unfinished monster or other; the paper peeling in 
shreds from the walls. 

I sighed and said: "This is charming; and now don't you think 
you could get me something to read? " 

The porter said, ** Oh, certainly; the old man's got dead loads oX 
books; " and he was gone before I could tell him what sort of literature 
I would rather have. And yet his countenance expressed the utmost 
confidence in his ability to execute the commission with credit to himself 
The old man made a descent on him. 

•* What are you going to do with that pile of books? ' 

** Fifteen wants 'em, sir." 

** Fifteen, is it ? He'll want a warming-pan, next — he'll want 8 
nurse ! Take him everything there is in the house — take him the bar- 
keeper — take him the baggage-wagon — take him a chambermaid I 
Confound me, I never saw anything like it. What did he say he wants 
with those books? " 

" Wants to read 'em, like enough; it ain't likely he wants to eat *em, 
I don't reckon." 

** Wants to read 'em — wants to read 'em this time of night, the in- 
fernal lunatic ! Well he can't have them." 

" But he says he's mor'ly bound to have 'em: he says he'U just go 
a-rairin' and a-chargin' through this house and raise more — well, there's 
no teUin' what he won't do if he don't get 'em; because he's drunk and 



The Innocents Abroad 403 

crazy and desperate, and nothing'll soothe bim down but tbem cussed 
books." [I had not made any threats and was not in the condition 
ascribed to me by the porter.] 

** Well, go on; but I will be around when he goes to rairing and 
charging, and the first rair he makes I'll make him rair out of the win- 
dow." And then the old gentleman went off growling as before. 

The genius of that porter was something wonderful. He put an 
armful of books on the bed and said " Good night " as confidently as if 
he knew perfectly well that those books were exactly my style of reading 
matter. And well he might. His selection covered the whole rar^e ot 
legitimat*' literature. It comprised "The Great Consummation," by 
Rev. Dr. ^ummings — theology; ** Revised Statutes of the State of 
Missouri '■' — law; •' The Complete Horse-Doctor " — medicine; ** The 
Toilers of the Sea," by Victor Hugo — romance; "The works of Wil- 
liam Shakspeare " — poetry. I shall never cease to admire the tact and 
the intelligence of that gifted porter. 

But all the donkeys in Christendom, and most of 
the Egyptian boys, I think, are at the door, and 
there is some noise going on, not to put it in 
stronger language. We are about starting to the 
illustrious Pyramids of Egypt, and the donkeys for 
the voyage are under inspection. I will go and 
select one before the choice animals are all taken. 



CHAPTER XXXL 

THE donkeys were all good, all handsome, all 
strong and in good condition, all fast and all 
willing to prove it. They were the best we had 
found anywhere, and the most recherche, I do not 
know what recherche is, but that is what these 
donkeys were, anyhow. Some were of a soft mouse- 
color, and the others were white, black, and vari- 
colored. Some were close-shaven, all over, except 
that a tuft like a paint-brush was left on the end of 
the tail. Others were so shaven in fanciful land- 
scape garden patterns, as to mark their bodies with 
curving lines, which were bounded on one side by 
hair and on the other by the close plush left by the 
shears. They had all been newly barbered, and 
were exceedingly stylish. Several of the white ones 
were barred like zebras with rainbow stripes of blue 
and red and yellow paint. These were indescribably 
gorgeous. Dan and Jack selected from this lot be- 
cause they brought back Italian reminiscences of the 
** old masters.*' The saddles were the high, stuffy,- 
frog-shaped things we had known in Ephesus and 
Smyrna, The donkey-boys were lively youn^ 

<404J 



The innocents Abroad 405 

Egyptian rascals who could follow a donkey and 
keep him in a canter half a day without tiring. We 
had plenty of spectators when we mounted, for the 
hotel was full of English people bound overland to 
India and officers getting ready for the African 
campaign against the Abyssinian King Theodorus. 
We were not a very large party, but as we charged 
through the streets of the great metropolis, we made 
noise for five hundred, and displayed activity and 
created excitement in proportion. Nobody can steer 
a donkey, and some collided with camels, dervishes, 
effendis, asses, beggars, and everything else that 
offered to the donkeys a reasonable chance for a 
collision. When we turned into the broad avenue 
that leads out of the city toward Old Cairo, there 
was plenty of room. The walls of stately date- 
palms that fenced the gardens and bordered the 
way, threw their shadows down and made the air 
cool and bracing. We rose to the spirit of the time 
and the race became a wild rout, a stampede, a 
terrific panic, I wish to live to enjoy it again. 

Somewhere along this route we had a few startling 
exhibitions of Oriental simplicity. A girl apparently 
thirteen years of age came along the great thorough- 
fare dressed like Eve before the fall. We would 
have called her thirteen at home ; but here girls who 
look thirteen are often not more than nine, in reality. 

Occasionally we saw stark-naked men of superb 
build, bathing, and making no attempt at conceal- 
ment. However, an hour's acquaintance with this 



4oa The Innocents Abroad 

cheerful custom reconciled the pilgrims to it, and 
then it ceased to occasion remark. Thus easily do 
even the most startling novelties grow tame and 
spiritless to these sight-surfeited wandererSc 

Arrived at Old Cairo, the camp-followers took up 
the donkeys and tumbled them bodily aboard a small 
boat with a lateen sail, and we followed and got 
under way. The deck was closely packed with 
donkeys and men ; the two sailors had to climb over 
and under and through the wedged mass to work the 
sails, and the steersman had to crowd four or five 
donkeys out of the way when he wished to swing his 
tiller and put his helm hard down. But what were 
their troubles to us? We had nothing to do; noth- 
ing to do but enjoy the trip; nothing to do but 
shove the donkeys off our corns and look at the 
charming scenery of the Nile^ 

On the island at our right was the machine they 
call the Nilometer, a stone column whose business it 
is to mark the rise of the river and prophesy whether 
it will reach only thirty-two feet and produce a 
famine, or whether it will properly flood the land at 
forty and produce plenty, or whether it will rise to 
forty-three and bring death and destruction to flocks 
and crops — but how it does all this they could not 
explain to us so that we could understand. On the 
same island is still shown the spot where Pharaoh's 
daughter found Moses in the bulrushesc Near the 
spot we sailed from, the Holy Family dwelt when 
they soiourned in Egypt till Herod should complete 



The Innocents Abroad AOf 

his slaughter of the innocents- The same tree they 
rested under when they first arrived was there a 
short time ago, but the Viceroy of Egypt sent it to 
the Empress Eugenie lately. He was just in timCj 
otherwise our pilgrims would have had it. 

The Nile at this point is muddy, swift, and turbid, 
and does not lack a great deal of being as wide as the 
Mississippi, 

We scrambled up the steep bank at the shabby 
town of Ghizeh, mounted the donkeys again, and 
scampered away. For four or five miles the route 
lay along a high embankment which they say is to 
be the bed of a railway the Sultan means to build for 
no other reason than that when the Empress of the 
French comes to visit him she can go to the Pyra- 
mids in comfort. This is true Oriental hospitality. 
I am very glad it is our privilege to have donkeys 
instead of cars. 

At the distance of a few miles the Pyramids, rising 
above the palms, looked very clean-cut, very grand 
and imposing, and very soft and filmy, as welL 
They swam in a rich haze that took from them all 
suggestions of unfeeling stone, and made them seem 
only the airy nothings of a dream — structures which 
might blossom into tiers of vague arches, or ornate 
colonnades, maybe, and change and change again 
into all graceful forms of architecture while we 
looked, and then melt deliciously away and blend 
with the tremulous atmosphere. 

At the end of the levee we left the mules and went 



40S The Innocents Abroaoi 

m a sailboat across an arm of the Nile or an over- 
flow j> and landed where the sands of the Great Sahara 
left their embankment, as straight as a wall, along 
the verge of the alluvial plain of the river. A labo- 
rious walk in the flaming sun brought us to the foot 
of the great Pyramid of Cheops. It was a fairy 
vision no longer. It was a corrugated, unsightly 
mountain of stone. Each of its monstrous sides 
was a wide stairway which rose upward, step above 
step, narrowing as it went, till it tapered to a point 
far aloft in the air. Insect men and women — pil- 
grims from the Quaker City — were creeping about 
its dizzy perches, and one little black swarm were 
waving postage stamps from the airy summit — hand- 
kerchiefs will be understood. 

Of course we were besieged by a rabble of muscu- 
lar Egyptians and Arabs who wanted the contract of 
dragging us to the top — all tourists are. Of course 
you could not hear your own voice for the din that 
was around you. Of course the Sheiks said they 
were the only responsible parties ; that all contracts 
must be made with them, all moneys paid over to 
them, and none exacted from us by any but them- 
selves alone. Of course they contracted that the 
varlets who dragged us up should not mention buck- 
sheesh once. For such is the usual routine. Of 
course we contracted with them, paid them, were de- 
livered into the hands of the draggers, dragged up 
the Pyramids, and harried and bedeviled for buck- 
sheesh from the foundation clear to the summit. 



The Innocents Abroaa 40^ 

We paid it, too, for we were purposely spread very 
far apart over the vast side of the Pyramid. There 
was no help near if we called, and the Herculeses 
who dragged us had a way of asking sweetly and 
flatteringly for bucksheesh, which was seductive, and 
of looking fierce and threatening to throw us down 
the precipice, which was persuasive and convincing. 

Each step being full as high as a dinner table; 
there being very, very many of the steps ; an Arab 
having hold of each of our arms and springing up- 
ward from step to step and snatching us with them, 
forcing us to lift our feet as high as our breasts every 
time, and do it rapidly and keep it up till we were 
ready to faint, — who shall say it is not lively, exhila- 
rating, lacerating, muscle-straining, bone-wrenching, 
and perfectly excruciating and exhausting pastime, 
climbing the Pyramids? I beseeched the varlets not 
to twist all my joints asunder; I iterated, reiterated, 
even swore to them that I did not wish to beat any- 
body to the top ; did all I could to convince them 
that if I got there the last of all I would feel blessed 
above men and grateful to them forever; I begged 
them, prayed them, pleaded with them to let me 
stop and rest a moment — only one little moment i 
and they only answered with some more frightful 
springs, and an unenlisted volunteer behind opened 
a bombardment of determined boosts with his head 
which threatened to batter my whole political econ 
omy to wreck and ruin. 

Twice, for one minute, they let me rest while they 



410 The Innocents Abroad 

extorted bucksheesh, and then continued their maniac 
flight up the Pyramid. They wished to beat the 
other parties* It was nothing to them that I, a 
stranger, must be sacrificed upon the altar of their 
unholy ambition. But in the midst of sorrow joy 
blooms. Even in this dark hour I had a sweet con- 
solation. For I knew that except these Mohamme- 
dans repented they would go straight to perdition 
some day. And Minever repent — they never for- 
sake their paganism. This thought calmed me, cheered 
me, and I sank down, limp and exhausted, upon the 
summit, but happy, so happy and serene within. 

On the one hand, a mighty sea of yellow sand 
stretched away towards the ends of the earth, solemn, 
silent, shorn of vegetation, its solitude uncheered by 
any forms of creature life ; on the other, the Eden 
of Egypt was spread below us — a broad green floor, 
cloven by the sinuous river, dotted with villages, its 
vast distances measured and marked by the diminish- 
ing stature of receding clusters of palmSc It lay 
asleep in an enchanted atmosphere. There was no 
sound, no motion. Above the date-plumes in the 
middle distance, swelled a domed and pinnacled 
mass, glimmering through a tinted, exquisite mist; 
away toward the horizon a dozen shapely pyramids 
watched over ruined Memphis j and at our feet the 
bland impassible Sphinx looked out upon the picture 
from her throne in the sands as placidly and pen- 
sively as she had looked upon its like full fifty lag 
9jing centuries ago. 



The Innocents Abroad 411 

We suffered torture no pen can describe from the 
hungry appeals for backsheesh that gleamed from 
Arab eyes and poured incessantly from Arab lips. 
Why ti-y to call up the traditions of vanished 
Egyptian grandeur; why try to. fancy Egypt follow- 
ing dead Rameses to his tomb in the Pyramid, or the 
long nniltitude of Israel departing over the desert 
yonder? Why try to think at all? The thing was 
impossible. One must bring his meditations cut and 
dried, or else cut and dry them afterward. 

The traditional Arab proposed, in the traditional 
way, to run down Cheops, cross the eighth of a mile 
of sand intervening between it and the tall pyramid 
of Cephren, ascend to Cephren's summit and return 
to us on the top of Cheops — all in nine minutes by 
the watch, and the whole service to be rendered for 
a single dollar. In the first flush of irritationj I said 
let the Arab and his exploits go to the mischief. 
But stay. The upper third of Cephren was coated 
with dressed marble, smooth as glass. A blessed 
thought entered my brain. He must infallibly break 
his neck. Close the contract v/ith dispatch, I said, 
and let him go. Ke started. We watched. He 
went bounding down the vast broadside, spring after 
spring, like an ibex. He grew small and smaller till 
he became a bobbing pigmy, away down toward the 
bottom — then disappeared, We turned and peered 
over the other side — forty seconds — eighty seconds 
— a hundred — happiness, he is dead already? — two 
minutes — and a quarter -— * ' There he goes \ '* Too 



412 The Innocents Abroad 

true — it was too true^ He was very small, now. 
Gradually, but surely, he overcame the level ground. 
He began to spring and climb again. Up, up, up 
— at last he reached the smooth coating — now for 
it. But he clung to it with toes and fingers, like a 
fly. He crawled this way and that — away to the 
right, slanting upward — away to the left, still slant- 
ing upward — and stood at last, a black peg on the 
summit, and waved his pigmy scarf ! Then he crept 
downward to the raw steps again, then picked up his 
agile heels and flew. We lost him presently. But 
presently again we saw him under us, mounting with 
undiminished energy. Shortly he bounded into our 
midst with a gallant war- whoop. Time, eight min- 
utes, forty-one seconds. He had won. His bones 
were intact. It was a failure. I reflected. I said 
to myself, he is tired, and must grow dizzy I will 
risk another dollar on him. 

He started again. Made the trip again. Slipped 
on the smooth coating— I almost had him. But an 
Infamous crevice saved him. He was with us once 
more — perfectly sound. Time, eight minutes^ 
forty-six seconds, 

I said to Dan, **Lend me a dollar — I can beat 
this game, yet.** 

Worse and worse. He won again. Time, eight 
minutes, forty-eight seconds. I was out of all 
patience, now» I was desperate. Money was no 
longer of any consequence. I said, *' Sirrah, I will 
give you a hundred dollars to jump off this pyramid 



The Innocents Abroad 413 

head first. If you do not like the terms, name your 
bet. I scorn to stand on expenses now. I will stay 
right here and risk money on you as long as Dan 
has got a cent.** 

I was in a fair way to win, now, for it was a dazzling 
opportunity for an Arab. He pondered a moment, 
and would have done it, I think, but his mother 
arrived, then, and interfered. Her tears moved me 
— I never can look upon the tears of woman with 
indifference — and I said I would give her a hundred 
to jump off, too. 

But it was a failure. The Arabs are too high- 
priced in Egypt- They put on airs unbecoming to 
such savages. 

We descended, hot and out of humor. The 
dragoman lit candles, and we all entered a hole 
near the base of the pyramid, attended by a crazy 
rabble of Arabs who thrust their services upon us 
uninvited. They dragged us up a long inclined 
chute, and dripped candle-grease all over us. This 
chute was not more than twice as wide and high as a 
Saratoga trunk, and was walled, roofed, and floored 
with solid blocks of Egyptian granite as wide as a 
wardrobe, twice as thick, and three times as long. 
We kept on climbing, through the oppressive gloom, 
till I thought we ought to be nearing the top of the 
pyramid again, and then came to the ** Queen's- 
Chamber,** and shortly to the Chamber of the King. 
These large apartments were tombs. The walls wer^* 
built of monstrous masses of smoothed ffranitf, 



414 Th6 Innocents Abroaci 

neatly joined together. Some of them were nearly 
as large square as an ordinary parlor. A great stone 
sarcophagus like a bathtub stood in the center of the 
King's Chamberc Around it were gathered a pic- 
turesque group of Arab savages and soiled and tat- 
tered pilgrims, who held their candles aloft in the 
gloom while they chattered, and the winking blurs of 
light shed a dim glory down upon one of the irre- 
pressible memento-seekers who was pecking at the 
venerable sarcophagus with his sacrilegious hammer. 
We struggled out to the open air and the bright sun- 
shine, and for the space' of thirty minutes received 
ragged Arabs by couples, dozens, and platoons, and 
paid them bucksheesh for services they swore and 
proved by each other that they had rendered, but 
which we had not been aware ot before — and as 
each party was paid, they dropped into the rear 
ot the procession and in due time arrived again 
with a newly-invented delinquent list for liquida- 
tion. 

We lunched in the shade of the pyramid, and in 
the midst of this encroaching and unwelcome com- 
pany, and then Dan and Jack and I started away for 
a walkc A howling swarm of beggars followed us — 
surrounded us — almost headed us off A sheik, in 
flowing white bournous and gaudy headgear, was 
with them. He wanted more bucksheesh. But we 
had adopted a new code — it was millions for de- 
fense, but not a cent for bucksheesh. I asked him 
«f he could persuade the others to depart if we paid 



The Innocents Abroad 4i5 

him. He said yes — for ten francs. We accepted 
the contract, and said — 

*' Now persuade your vassals to fall back," 
He swung his long staff round his head and three 
Arabs bit the dust. He capered among the mob 
like a very maniac. His blows fell like hail, and 
wherever one fell a subject went down. We had to 
hurry to the rescue and tell him it was only necessary 
to damage them a little, he need not kill them. In 
two minutes we were alone with the sheik, and re- 
mained so. The persuasive powers of this illiterate 
savage were remarkable. 

Each side of the Pyramid of Cheops is about as 
Jong as the Capitol at Washington, or the Sultan's 
new palace on the Bosporus, and is longer than the 
greatest depth of St. Peter's at Rome— -which is to 
say that each side of Cheops extends seven hundred 
and some odd feet. It is about seventy-five feet 
higher than the cross on St. Peter's. The first time 
I ever went down the Mississippi, I thought the 
highest bluff on the river between St. Louis and New 
Orleans ^ — it was near Selma, Missouri — was proba- 
bly the highest mountain in the world. It is foui 
hundred and thirteen feet high. It still looms in 
my memoty with undiminished grandeur. I can 
still see the trees and bushes growing smaller and 
smaller as I followed them up its huge slant with my 
eye, till they became a feathery fringe on the distant 
summit. This symmetrical Pyramid of Cheops — 
this solid mountain of stone reared by the patient 



4i6 The Innocente Abroad 

hands of men — this mighty tomb of a forgotten 
monarch — dwarfs my cherished mountain. For it 
is four hundred and eighty feet high. In still earlier 
years than those I have been recalling, Holliday's 
Hill, in our town, was to me the noblest work of 
God. It appeared to pierce the skies. It was 
nearly three hundred feet high. In those days I 
pondered the subject much, but I never could un- 
derstand why it did not swathe its summit with never- 
failing clouds, and crown its majestic brow with ever- 
lasting snows. I had heard that such was the custom 
of great mountains in other parts of the world. I re- 
membered how I worked with another boy, at odd 
afternoons stolen from study and paid for with 
stripes, to undermine and start from its bed an im- 
mense boulder that rested upon the edge of that hill- 
top ; I remembered how, one Saturday afternoon, we 
gave three hours of honest effort to the task, and saw 
at last that our reward was at hand ; I remembered 
how we sat down, then, and wiped the perspiration 
away, and waited to let a picnic party get out of the 
way in the road below — and then we started the 
boulder. It was splendid. It went crashing down 
the hillside, tearing up saplings, mowing bushes 
down like grass, ripping and crushing and smashing 
everything in its path — eternally splintered and scat- 
tered a woodpile at the foot of the hill, and then 
sprang from the high bank clear over a dray in the 
road — the negro glanced up once and dodged — 
and the next second it made infinitesimal mincemeat 



fhe Innocents Abroao iif 

of a frame cooper-shop, and the coopers swarmed 
out h*ke bees. Then we said it was perfectly mag- 
nificent, and left. Because the coopers were start- 
ing up the hill to inquire. 

Still, that mountain, prodigious as it was, was noth- 
ing to the Pyramid of Cheops. I could conjure up 
no comparison that would convey to my mind a sat- 
isfactory comprehension of the magnitude of a pile 
of monstrous stones that covered thirteen acres of 
ground and stretched upward four hundred and 
eighty tiresome feet, and so I gave it up and walked 
down to the Sphinx. 

After years of waiting, it was before me at last. 
The great face was so sad, so earnest, so longing, so 
patient. There was a dignity not of earth in its 
mien^ and in its countenance a benignity such as 
never anything human wore. It was stone, but it 
seemed sentient* If ever image of stone thought, 
h was thinking. It was looking toward the verge of 
the landscape, yet looking ai nothing — nothing but 
distance and vacancy. It was looking over and be- 
yond everything of the present, and far into the past. 
It was gazing out over the ocean of Time — -over 
lines of century-waves which, further and further 
receding, closed nearer and nearer together, and 
blended at last into one unbroken tide, away toward 
the horizon of remote antiquity. It was thinking of 
the wars of departed ages; of the empires it had 
seen created and destroyed; of the nations whose 
birth it had witnessed, whose progress it had 



418 Thft Innocents Abroad 

watched, whose annihilation it had noted ; of the joy 
and sorrow, the life and death, the grandeur and de- 
cay ? of five thousand slow revolving years It was 
the type of an attribute of man '— of a faculty of his 
heart and brain. It was MEMORY — RETROSPEC- 
TION- wrought into visible, tangible form All 
who know what pathos there is In memories of days 
that are accomplished and faces that have vanished 
— albeit only a trifling score of years gone by — will 
have some appreciation of the pathos that dwells in 
these grave eyes that look so steadfastly back upon 
the things they knew before History was born •■■— be- 
fore Tradition had being ™-~ things that were^ and 
forms that moved ^ in a vague era which even Poetry 
and Romance scarce know of — and passed one by 
one away and left the stony dreamer solitary in the 
midst of a strange new age. and uncomprehended 
scenes. 

The Sphinx Is grand In its loneliness ; it is impos- 
ing in its magnitude ; it is impressive in the mystery 
that hangs over its story. And there is that in the 
overshadowing majesty of this eternal figure of stone, 
with its accusing memory of the deeds of all ages, 
which reveals to one something of what he shall feel 
when he shall stand at last in the awful presence of 
God: 

There are some things which, for the credit of 
America, should be left unsaid, perhaps; but these 
very things happen sometimes to be the very things 
which, for the real benefit of Americans, ought to 



Tbe litmoceni;!^ ADroad 4i9 

have prominent noticeo While we stood looking, a 
wart, or an excrescence of some kind, appeared on 
the jaw of the Sphinx. We heard the familiar clink 
of a hammer, and understood the case at once. One 
of our well-meaning reptiles — I mean relic-hunters 
— had crawled up there and was trying to break a 
'* specimen *' from the face of this the most majestic 
creation the hand of man has wrought. But the great 
image contemplated the dead ages as calmly as ever^ 
unconscious of the small insect that was fretting at its 
jawc Egyptian granite that has defied the storms 
and earthquakes of all time has nothing to fear from 
the tack hammers of ignorant excursionists — high- 
waymen like this specimen. He failed in his enter- 
prise. We sent a sheik to arrest him if he had the 
authority, or to warn him, if he had not, that by the 
!aw? of Egypt the crime he was attempting to commit 
was punishable with imprisonment or the bastinado. 
Then he desisted and went away 

The Sphinx: a hundred and twenty-five feet long, 
sixty feet high, and a hundred and two feet around 
the head, if I remember rightly — carved out of one 
solid block of stone harder than any Iron, The 
block must have been as large as the Fifth Avenue 
Hotel before the usual waste (by the necessities of 
sculpture) of a fourth or a half of the original mass 
was begun, I only set down these figures and these 
remarks to suggest the prodigious labor the carving 
of it so elegantly, so symmetrically, so faultlessly^ 
must have cost- This species of stone is so hard 



420 tlie gnnocents Abroad 

that figures cu*" in it lemain sharp and unmarred 
after exposure to the weather for two or three thou- 
sand years. Now did it take a hundred years of 
patient toil to carve the Sphinx? It seems probabiec 
Something interfered, and we did not visit the 
Red Sea and walk upon the sands of Arabia„ I 
shall not describe the great mosque of Mehemet Ali, 
whose entire inner walls are built of polished and 
glistening alabaster; I shall not tell how the little 
birds have built their nests In the globes of the great 
chandeliers that hang in the mosque, and how they 
fill the whole place with their music and are not 
afraid of anybody because their audacity is par- 
doned » their rights are respected, and nobody is 
allowed to interfere with them, even though the 
mosque be thus doomed to go unlighted ; I certainly 
shall not tell the hackneyed story of the massacre of 
the Mamelukes, because I am glad the lawless rascals 
were massacred, and I do not wish to get up any 
sympathy in their behalf; I shall not tell how that 
one solitary Mameluke jumped his horse a hundred 
feet down from the battlements of the citadel and 
escaped, because I do not think much of that — I 
could have done it myself; I shall not tell of 
Joseph's well which he dug in the solid rock of the 
citadel hill and which is still as good as new, nor 
how the same mules he bought to draw up the water 
(with an endless chain) are still at it yet and are 
getting tired of it, too; I shall not tell about 
loseph*s granaries which he built to store the grain 



Tlie Innocents Abroad 421 

in, what time the Egyptian brokers were *' selling 
short," unwitting that there would be no corn in all 
the land when it should be time for them to deliver; 
I shall not tell anything about the strange, strange 
cit>' of Cairo, because it is only a repetition, a good 
deal intensified and exaggerated ^ of the Oriental 
cities I have already spoken of; I shall not tell of 
the Great Caravan which leaves for Mecca every 
ye^r, for I did not see it; nor of the fashion the 
people have cf prostrating themselves and so form» 
ing a long human pavement to be ridden over by 
the chief of the expedition on its return, to the end 
that their salvation may be thus secured, for I did 
not see that either ; I shall not speak of the railway- 
for it is like any other railway — ~ I shall only say 
that the fuel they use for the locomotive is com« 
posed ot mummies three thousand years old^ pur- 
chased by the ton or by the graveyard for that pur» 
pose, and that sometimes one hears the profane 
engineer call out pettishly^ ^ ' D — n these plebeians, 
they don't burn worth a cent™ pass out a King;'** 
I shall not tell of the groups of mud cones stuck 
like wasps* nests upon a thousand mounds above 
high- water mark the length and breadth of Egypt — 
villages of the lower classes ; I shall not speak of the 
boundless sweep of level plain, green with luxuriant 
grain, that gladdens the eye as far as it can pierce 
through the soft, rich atmosphere of Egypt; I shaB 



♦ Stated to me for a fact* I only tell Jt as I got it, I am wiHing fej 
believe it, I can beiieve anything. 



422 Tlie Innocents Abroad 

not speak of the vision of the Pyramids seen at a 
distance of five and twenty miles, for the picture is 
too ethereal to be limned by an uninspired pen ; I 
shall not tell of the crowds of dusky women who 
flocked to the cars when they stopped a moment at 
a station, to sell us a drink of water or a ruddy, 
juicy pomegranate; I shall not tell of the motley 
multitudes and wild costumes that graced a fair we 
found in full blast at another barbarous station ; I 
shall not tell how we feasted on fresh dates and en- 
joyed the pleasant landscape all through the flying 
journey; nor how we thundered into Alexandria, at 
last, swarmed out of the cars., rowed aboard the 
ship, left a comrade behind (who was to return to 
Europe^ thence home), raised the anchor, and 
turned our bows homeward finally and forever from 
the long voyage ; nor how. as the mellow sun went 
down upon the oldest land on earth, Jack and Moult 
assembled in solemn state in the smoking-room and 
mourned over the lost comrade the whole night 
long, and would not be comforted. I shall not 
speak a word of any of these things, or write a line. 
They shall be as a sealed bookc I do not know 
what a sealed book is, because I never saw one, but 
a sealed book is the expression to use in this con- 
nection, because it is popular 

We were glad to have seen the land which was 
the mother of civilization — which taught Greece her 
letters, and through Greece Rome, and through 
Rome the world ; the land which could have human- 



The Innocents Abroad 42$ 

ized and civilized the hapless children of Israel, but 
allowed them to depart out of her borders little 
better than savages. We were glad to have seen 
that land which had an enlightened religion with 
future eternal rewards and punishment in it, while 
even Israel's religion contained no promise of a 
hereafter. We were glad to have seen that land 
which had glass three thousand years before Eng- 
land had it, and could paint upon it as none of us 
can paint now; that land which knew, three thou- 
sand years ago, well nigh all of medicine and surgery 
which science has discovered lately ; which had all 
those curious surgical instruments which science has 
invented recently ; which had in high excellence a 
thousand luxuries and necessities of an advanced 
civilization which we have gradually contrived and 
accumulated in modern times and claimed as things 
that were new under the sun ; that had paper untold 
centuries before we dreamt of it — and waterfalls 
before our women thought of them, that had a 
perfect system of common schools so long before we 
boasted of our achievements in that direction that it 
seems forever and forever ago ; that so embalmed 
the dead that flesh was made almost immortal — 
which we cannot do , that built temples which mock 
at destroying time and smile grimly upon our lauded 
little prodigies of architecture; that old land that 
knew all which we know now, perchance, and more; 
that walked in the broad highway of civilization in 
the gray dawn of creation, ages and ages before we 



i|24 tlie Ini^ocenb Abroad 

were born p tliat left the impress of exalted, culti- 
vated Mind upon the eternal front of the Sphinx to 
confound all scoffers who, when all her other proofs 
had passed away, might seek to persuade the world 
that imperial Egypt, in the days of her high renown^ 
had groped in darkness. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

W /E were at sea now, for a very long voyage — we 
VV were to pass through the entire length of tne 
Levant; through the entire length of the Mediter- 
ranean proper, also, and then cross the full width of 
the Atlantic — a voyage of several weeks. We 
naturally settled down into a very slow, stay-at-home 
manner of life, and resolved to be quiet, exemplary 
people, and roam no more for twenty or thirty days. 
No more, at least., than from stem to stern of the 
ship. It was a very comfortable prospect, though 
for we were tired and needed a long restc 

We were all lazy and satisfied, now, as the meagei 
entries in my note-book (that sure index, to me, of 
my condition) prove. What a stupid thing a note- 
book gets to be at sea, any way. Please observe 
the style: 

'' ^»//<^^-— Services, as usual, at tour beUa. Services at night, also. 
No cards. 

** Monday — Beautihil day, but rained hard. The cattle purchased at 
Alexandria for beef ought to be shingled. Or else fattened. The vratei 
stands in deep puddles in the depressions forward of their after shoulders, 
Also here and there all over their backs. It is well they are not cows~- 
if would soak in and ruin the milk. The poor devil eagle* from Syrif 



* Afterwards presented to the Central Park.. 



426 The Innocents Abroad 

looks miserable and droopy in the rain perched on the forward capstan. 
He appears to have his own opinion of a sea voyage, and if it were put 
into language and the language solidified, it would probably essentially 
dam the widest river in the world. 

*' Tuesday — Somewhere in the neighborhood of the island of Malta, 
Can not stop there. Cholera. Weather very stormy. Many passen- 
gers seasick and invisible. 

*' Wednesday — Weather still very savage. Storm blew two land birds 
to sea, and they came on board, A hawk was blown off, also« He 
circled round and round the ship, wanting to light, but afraid of the 
people. He was so tired, though, that he had to light, at last, or perish. 
He stopped in the foretop, repeatedly, and was as often blown away by 
the wind. At last Harry caught him. Sea full of flying-fish. They 
nse m flocks of three hundred and flash along above the tops of the 
waves a distance of two or three hundred feet, then fall and disap- 
pear, 

" Thursday — Anchored off Algiers, Africa. Beautiful city, beau- 
tiful green hilly landscape behind it. Stayed half a day and left. Not 
permitted to land, though we showed a clean bill of health. They were 
afraid of Egyptian plague and cholera, 

^^ Friday — Morning, dominoes. Afternoon, dominoes. Evening, 
promenading the deck. Afterwards, charades, 

**5<3!/«/'</ay'— Morning, dominoes. Afternoon, dominoes. Even- 
ing, promenading the decks. Afterwards, dominoes, 

** Sunday — Morning service, four bells. Evening service, eight 
bells. Monotony till midnight, — Whereupon, dommoes. 

** Monday — Morning, dominoes. Afternoon, dominoes. Evening, 
promenading the decks. Afterwards, charades and a lecture from Dr. 
C Dominoes, 

^* No date — Anchored off the picturesque city of Cagliari, Sardinia. 
Stayed till midnight, but not permitted to land by these infamous for- 
eigners. They smell inodorously — they do not wash — they dare not 
risk cholera. 

•* Thursday — Anchored off the beautiful cathedral city of Malaga, 
Spain. — Went ashore in the captain's boat — not ashore, either, for they 
would not let us land. Quarantine. Shipped my newspaper correspond- 
ence, which they took with tongs, dipped it in sea water, clipped it full 
of holes, and then fumigated it with villainous vapors till it smelt Hke a 
Spaniard, Inquired about chances to run the blockade and visit the 



The Innocents Abroad 427 

Alhambra at Granada. Too risl^— they might hang a body. Set 
sail — middle of afternoon. 

** And so on, and so on, and so forth, fcwr several days. FhaJtft 
anchored off Gibraltar, which looks familiar and home-like." 

It reminds me of the journal I opened with the 
New Year, once, when I was a boy and a confiding 
and a wiUing prey to those impossible schemes of 
reform which well-meaning old maids and grand- 
mothers set for the feet of unwary youths at that 
season of the year — setting oversized tasks for 
them, which, necessarily failing, as infallibly weaken 
the boy*s strength of will, diminish his confidence in 
himself, and injure his chances of success in 3ife 
Please accept of an extract : 

•* Monday — Got up, washed, went to bed, 

" Tuesday — Got up, washed, went to bed. 

** Wednesday — Got up, washed, went to bed^ 

" Thursday — Got up, washed, went to bed. 

** Friday — Got up, washed, went to bed. 

'• Next Friday — Got up, washed, went to bed. 

** Friday for inighi-^Goi up, washed, went to bed, 

" Following month — Got up, washed, went to bed." 

I Stopped, then, discouraged. Startling events 
appeared to be too rare, in m.y career, to render a 
diary necessary. I still reflect with pride, however, 
that even at that early age I washed when I got up. 
That journal finished me. I never have had the 
nerve to keep one since. My loss of confidence in 
myself in that line was permanentc 

The ship had to stay a week or more at Gibraltar 
to take in coal for the home voyage. 

It would be very tiresome staying here, and so 



428 The Iimcx:ents Abroad 

four of us ran the quarantine blockade and spent 
seven delightful days in Seville^ Cordova, Cadiz, and 
wandering through the pleasant rural scenery of 
Andalusia, the garden of Old Spain. The experi- 
ences of that cheery week were too varied and 
numerous for a short chapter, and I have not room 
for n long one Therefore I shall leave them all 
out 



CHAPTER XXXni 

rN or eleven o'clock found us coming down tc 
breakfast one morning in Cadiz. They told 
us the ship had been lying at anchor in the harbor 
two or three hourSe It was time for us to bestii 
ourselves. The ship could wait only a little while 
because of the quarantine. We were soon on board, 
and within the hour the white city and the pleasant 
shores of Spain sank down behind the waves and 
passed out of sight. We had seen no land fade 
from view so regretfully. 

It had long ago been decided in a noisy public 
meeting in the main cabin that we could not go to 
Lisbon, because we must surely be quarantined there. 
We did everything by mass-meeting, in the good old 
national way, from swapping off one empire for 
another on the programme of the voyage down to 
complaining of the cookery and the scarcity of 
napkins. I am reminded, now, of one of these 
complaints of the cookery made by a passenger^ 
The coffee had been steadily growing more and more 
execrable for the space of three weeks, till at last it 
had ceased to be coffee altogether and had assumed 



430 The Innocents Abroad 

the nature of mere discolored water — so this person 
saido He said it was so weak that it was transparent 
an inch in depth around the edge of the cup. As 
he approached the table one morning he saw the 
transparent edge — by means of his extraordinary 
vision — long before he got to his seat. He went 
back and complained in a high-handed way to Cap- 
tain Duncan. He said the coffee was disgraceful. 
The captain showed his. It seemed tolerably good. 
The incipient mutineer was more outraged than 
ever J then, at what he denounced as the partiality 
^hown the captain's table over the other tables in 
the ship He flourished back and got his cup and 
set It down triumphantly, and said : 

'* Just try that mixture once. Captain Duncan.*' 
He smelt it — tasted it — smiled benignantly — 
then said : 

**ltis inferior — for coffee — but it Is pretty fair 

The humbled mutineer smelt it, tasted it, and re- 
turned to his seat. He had made an egregious ass 
of himself before the whole ship He did it no 
morCc After that he took things as they came 
That was me. 

The old-fashioned ship-life had returned, now that 
we were no longer in sight of land. For days and 
days It continued just the same, one day being exactly 
like another, and, to me, every one of them pleasant 
At last we anchored in the open roadstead of Fun- 
chal, in the beautiful islands we call the Madeiras. 



The Innocents Abroad 43i 

The mountains looked surpassingly lovely, clad as 
they were in living green; ribbed with lava ridges ; 
flecked with white cottages ; riven by deep chasms 
purple with shade; the great slopes dashed with 
sunshine and mottled with shadows flung from the 
drifting squadrons of the sky, and the superb pic- 
ture fitly crowned by towering peaks whose fronts 
were swept by the trailing fringes of the clouds. 

But we could not land. We stayed all day and 
looked, we abused the man who invented quarantine, 
we held half a dozen mass-meetings and crammed 
them full of interrupted speeches, amotions that fell 
still-born, amendments that came to naught, and 
resolutions that died from sheer exhaustion in trying 
to get before the house. At night we set sail. 

We averaged four mass-meetings a week for the 
voyage — we seemed always in labor in this way. 
and yet so often fallaciously that whenever at long 
intervals we were safely delivered of a resolution, it 
was cause for public rejoicing, and we hoisted the 
flag and fired a salute. 

Days passed — and nights ; and then the beautiful 
Bermudas rose out of the sea, we entered the tortu- 
ous channel, steamed hither and thither among the 
bright summer islands, and rested at last under the 
flag of England and were welcome. We were not a 
nightmare here, where were civilization and intelli 
gence in place of Spanish and Italian superstition^ 
dirt and dread of cholera. A few days among the 
breezy groves, the flower gardens, the coral caveSv 



♦32> Tbe innocents Abroaa 

and the lovely vistas of blue water that went curving 
?n and out, disappearing and anon again appearing 
through jungle walls of brilliant foliage, restored the 
energies dulled by long drowsing on the ocean, and 
iitted us for our final cruise — our little run of a 
thousand miles to New York -— America — HOME. 

We bade good-bye to ** our friends the Bermu- 
dians/' as our programme hath it — the majority of 
those we were most intimate with were negroes — • 
and courted the great deep again. I said the 
majority. We knew more negroes than white peo- 
ple, because we had a deal of washing to be done, 
but we made some most excellent friends among the 
whites, whom it will be a pleasant duty to hold long 
In grateful remembrance. 

We sailed, and from that hour all idling ceased c 
Such another system of overhauling, general litter- 
ing of cabins and packing of trunks we had not seen 
since we let go the anchor in the harbor of Belrout, 
Everybody was busy. Lists of all purchases had to 
be made out, and values attached, to facilitate mat- 
ters at the custom-house. Purchases bought by 
bulk in partnership had to be equitably divided, out- 
standing debts canceled, accounts compared, and 
trunks, boxes, and packages labeled. All day long 
the bustle and confusion continued. 

And now came our first accident, A passenger 
was running through a gangway, between decks, 
one stormy night, when he caught his foot in the 
Ton staple of a door that had been heedlessly left 



The Innocents Abroad ^33 

off a hatchway J, and the bones of his leg broke at 
the ankle. It was our first serious misfortune. Wt 
had traveled much more than twenty thousand 
miles, by land and sea, in many trying climates, 
without a single hurt, without a serious case of sick 
ness, and without a death among five and sixty pas- 
sengers. Our good fortune had been wonderfuL 
A sailor had jumped overboard at Constantinopk 
one night, and was seen no more^ but it was sus- 
pected that his object was to desert, and there was 
a slim chance, at least, that he reached the shore. 
But the passenger list was complete^ There was no 
name missing from the register. 

At last, one pleasant morning, we steamed tip 
the harbor of New York, all on deck, all dressed in 
Christian garb — by special order, for there was a 
latent disposition m some quarters to come out as 
Turks — and, amid a waving of handkerchiefs from 
welcoming friends, the glad pilgrims noted the 
shiver of the decks that told that ship and ^er had 
joined hands again, and the long, strange cruise was 
3ver. Amen* 



A NEWSPAPER VALEDICTORY 

IN this place I will print an article which I wrote 
for the New York Herald the night we arrived. 
I do it partly because my contract with my publish- 
ers makes it compulsory; partly because it is a 
proper, tolerably accurate, and exhaustive summing- 
up of the cruise of the ship and the performances of 
the pilgrims in foreign lands; and partly because 
^ome of the passengers have abused me for writing 
i\, and I wish the public to see how thankless a task 
If is to put one*s self to trouble to glorify unappre- 
ciative people. I was charged with ** rushing into 
print'* with these compHments. I did not rush, I 
had written news letters to the Herald sometimes, 
but yet when I visited the office that day I did not 
say anything about writing a valedictory. I did go 
to the Tribune office to see if such an article was 
wanted, because I belonged on the regular staff of 
that paper and it was simply a duty to do it. The 
managing editor was absent, and so I thought no 
more about it. At night when the Herald's request 
came for an article, I did not *' rush/' In fact» I 
demurred for a while, because I did not feel like 

C434) 



The Innocents Abroad 455 

writing compliments then, and therefore was afraid 
to speak of the cruise lest I might be betrayed into 
using other than complimentary language. How- 
ever, I reflected that it would be a just and righteous 
thing to go down and write a kind word for the 
Hadjis — Hadjis are people who have made the pil 
grimage — because parties not interested could not 
do it so feelingly as I, a fellow-Hadjf, and so I 
penned the valedictorye I have read it, and read it 
again ; and if there is a sentence in it that is not 
fulsomely complimentary to captain, ship, and pas- 
sengers, / cannot find it. If it is not a chapter that 
any company might be proud to have a body write 
about them, my judgment is fit for nothing. With 
these remarks I confidently submit it to the un- 
prejudiced judgment of the reader : 

RETURN OF THE HOLY LAND EXCURSIONISTS — THE. 

STORY OF THE CRUISE. 
To THE Editor of the Heralds 

The steamer Quaker City has accompKshed at lasfc her extraordinajT 
voyage and returned to her old pier at the foot of Wall street. The ex- 
pedition was a success in some respects, in some it was not. Originally il 
was advertised as a " pleasure excursion." Well, perhaps it was a pleas- 
ure excursion, but certainly it did not look like one; certainly it did not act 
like one. Anybody's and everybody's notion of a pleasure excursion 
IS that the parties to it will of a necessity be young and giddy and 
somewhat boisterous. They will dance a good deal, sing a good deal, 
make love, but sermonize very little. Anybody's and everybody's 
notion of a well-conducted funeral is that there must be a hearse and s 
corpse, and chief mourners and mourners by courtesy, many old peoplCf 
much solemnity, no levity, and a prayer and a sermon withal. Three- 
fourths of the Quaker Citfs passengers were between forty and seventy 
years of age \ There was a picnic crowd for you ! It may be supposed 



456 The Imsocents Abroad 

that tlj(^ other ft>urtb was composed of young girls. But it was no^., M. 
was chiefly composed of rusty old bachelors and a child of six years, 
Let us average the ages of the Quaker Citfs pilgrims and set the figure 
down as fifty years. Is any man insane enough to imagine that this 
picnic of patriarchs sang, made love, danced, laughed, told anecdotesj 
dealt in ungodly levity? In my experience they sinned little in these 
matters. No doubt it was presumed here at home that these frolicsome 
veterans laughed and sang and romped all day, and day after day, and 
"kept up a noisy excitement from one end of the ship to the other; and 
that they played blindman's buff or danced quadrilles and waltzes on 
moonlight evenings on the quarter-deck; and that at odd moments of 
Sioccupied time they jotted a laconic item or two in the journals they 
opened on such an elaborate plan when they left home, and then 
skurried off to their whist and euchre Tabors under the cabin lamps. It 
tJiese things were presumed, the presumption was at fault. The vener- 
able excursionists were not gay and frisky. They played no blindman's 
buff; they dealt not in whist; they shirked not the irksome journal, for 
^os ! most of them were even writing books. They never romped, they 
talked but little, they never sang, save in the nightly prayer-meeting. 
The pleasure ship was a synagogue, and the pleasure trip was a funeral 
excursion without a corpse. (There is nothing exhilarating about a 
funeral excursion vidthout a corpse.) A free, hearty laugh was a sound 
that was not heard oftener than once in seven days about those decks or in 
those cabins, and when it was heard it met with precious little sympathy. 
The excursionists danced, on three separate evenings, long, long ago 
(jt seems an age) quadrilles, of a single set, made up of three ladies 
and five gentlemen (the latter with handkerchiefs around their arms to 
signify their sex), who timed their feet to the solemn wheezing of a 
inelodeon ; but even this melancholy orgie was voted to be sinful, and 
dancing was discontinued. 

The pilgrims played dominoes when too much Josephus or Robin- 
fOli's Holy Land Researches, or book-writing, made recreation necessary 
—for dominoes is about as mild and sinless a game as any in the world, 
perhaps, excepting always the ineffably insipid diversion they call cro- 
quet, which is a game where you don't pocket any balls and don't carom 
on any thing of any consequence, and when you are done nobody has 
to pay, and there are no refreshments to saw off, and, consequently, 
there isn't any satisfaction whatever about it — they played dominoes 
till they were rested, and then they blackguarded each other privately 



The Innocents Abroad 4}> 

till prayer-time. When they were not seasick they were uncommonly 
prompt when the dinner-gong sounded. Such was our daily life on 
board the ship — solemnity, decorum, dinner, dominoes, devotions, 
slander. It was not lively enough for a pleasure trip ; but if we had 
only had a corpse it would have made a noble funeral excursion. It is* 
all over now ; but when I look back, the idea of these venerable fossils 
skipping forth on a six-months picnic, seems exquisitely refreshing. The 
advertised title of the expedition — "The Grand Holy Land Pleasure 
Excursion*' — was a misnomer. *'The Grand Holy Land Funerai Pro- 
cession" would have been better — much better. 

Wherever we went, in Europe, Asia, or Africa, we made a sensation, 
and, I suppose I may add, created a famine. None of us had ever been 
any where before ; we all hailed from the interior ; travel was a wild 
novelty to us, and we conducted ourselves in accordance with the naturai 
instincts that were in us, and trammeled ourselves with no ceremonies, 
no conventionalities. We always took care to make it understood that 
we were Americans — Americans I When we found that a good many 
toreigners had hardly ever heard c! America, and that a good many 
more knew it only as a barbarous province away off somewhere, that had 
lately been at war with somebody, we pitied the ignorance of the Old 
World, but abated no jot of our importance. Many and many a simple 
community in the Eastern hemisphere will remember for years the incur- 
sion of the strange horde in the year of our Lord 1867, that called 
themselves Americans, and seemed to imagine in some unaccountable 
way that they had a right to be proud of it. We generally created a 
famine, partly because the conee mi the Quaker City was unendurable, 
and sometimes the more substantial fare was not stiictly first-class ; and 
partly because one naturally tires of sitting long at the same board and 
eating from the same dishes. 

The people of those foreign countries are very, very ignorant. They 
looked curiously at the costumes we had brought from the wilds ot 
America. They observed that we talked loudly at table sometimes. 
They noticed that we looked out for expenses, and got what we con- 
veniently could out of a franc, and wondered where in the mischief we 
came from. In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared 
when we spoke to them in French ! We never did succeed in making 
those idiots understand their own language. One of our passengers said 
to a shopkeeper, in reference to a proposed return to buy a pair oj 
gloves, *'^//i?«jSr restay trankeel — maybe ve coom MQondaVr''^ smi 



43S The Innocents Abroad 

would you believe it, that shopkeeper, a bom Frenchman, had to ask 
what it was that had been said. Sometimes it seems to me, somehow, 
that there must be a difference between Parisian French and Quaker 
City French. 

The people stared at us everywhere, and we stared at them. We 
generally made them feel rather small, too, before we got done with 
them, because we bore down on them with America's greatness until we 
crushed them. And yet we took kindly to the manners and customs, 
and especially to the fashions of the various people we visited. When 
we left the Azores, we wore awful capotes and used fine tooth combs — 
successfully. When we came back from Tangier, in Africa, we were 
topped with fezzes of the bloodiest hue, hung with tassels like an Indian's 
scalp-lock. In France and Spain we attracted some attention in these 
costumes. In Italy they naturally took us for distempered GaribaJdians, 
and set a gunboat to look for anything significant in our changes of 
uniform. We made Rome howl. We could have made any place howl 
when we had all our clothes on. We got no fresh raiment in Greece — 
they had but little there of any kind. But at Constantinople, how we 
turned out! Turbans, scimetars, fezzes, horse-pistols, tunics, sashes, 
baggy trowsers, yellow shppers — Oh, we were gorgeous! The illus- 
trious dogs of Constantinople barked their under jaws off, and even then 
failed to do us justice. They are all dead by this time. They could 
not go through such a run of business as we gave them and survive. 

And then we went to see the Emperor of Russia. We just called 
on him as comfortably as if we had known him a century oi so, and 
when we had finished our visit we variegated ourselves with selections 
from Russian costumes and sailed away again more picturesque than 
ever. In Smyrna we picked up camel's hair shawls and other dressy 
things from Persia; but in Palestine — ah, in Palestine — our splendid 
career ended. They didn't wear any clothes there to speak of. We 
were satisfied, and stopped. We made no experiments. We did not 
try their costume. But we astonished the natives of that country. We 
antonished them with such eccentricities of dress as we could muster. 
We prowled through the Holy Land, from Cesarea PhiUppi to Jerusalem 
and the Dead Sea, a weird procession of pilgrims, gotten up regardless 
of expense, solemn, gorgeous, green-spectacled, drowsing under blue 
umbrellas, and astride of a sorrier lot of horses, camels, and asses than 
those that came out of Noah's ark, after eleven months of seasickness 
gjid short rations,. If ever those children of Israel in Palestine forgel 



The Innocents Abroad 499 

when Gideon's Band went through there from America, they ought to 
be cursed once more and finished. It was the rarest spectacle that evex 
astounded mortal eyes, perhaps. 

Well, we were at home in Palestine. It was easy to see that tha. 
was the grand feature of the expedition. We had cared nothing mucl 
about Europe. We galloped through the Louvre, the Pitti, the Uffizzi, 
the Vatican — all the galleries — and through the pictured and frescoed 
churches of Venice, Naples, and the cathedrals of Spain ; some of U3 
said that certain of the gieat works of the old masters were glorious 
creations of genius (we found it out in the guide-book, though we got 
hold of the wrong picture sometimes), and the others said they were 
disgraceful old daubs. We examined modern and ancient statuary with 
a critical eye in Florence, Rome, or anywhere we found it, and praised 
it if we saw fit, and if we didn't we said we preferred the wooden In- 
dians in front of the cigar stores of America. But the Holy Land 
brought out all our enthusiasm. We fell into raptures by the barren 
shores of Galilee ; we pondered at Tabor and at Nazareth ; we exploded 
into poetry over the questionable loveliness of Esdraelon ; we meditated 
at Jezreel and Samaria over the missionary zeal of Jehu ; we rioted — 
fairly rioted among the holy places of Jerusalem ; we bathed in Jordan 
and the Dead Sea, reckless whether our accident-insurance policies were 
extra-hazardous or not, and brought away so many jugs of precious 
water from both places that all the country from Jericho to the moun- 
tains of Moab will suffer from drouth this year, I think. Yet, the pil- 
grimage part of the excursion was its pet feature — there is no question 
about that. After dismal, smileless Palestine, beautiful Egypt had few 
charms for us. We merely glanced at it and were ready for home. 

They wouldn't let us land at Malta — quarantine; they would not 
let us land in Sardinia; nor at Algiers, Africa; nor at Malaga, Spain, 
nor Cadiz, nor at the Madeira Islands. So we got offended at all for- 
eigners and turned our backs upon them and came home, I suppose 
we only stopped at the Bermudas because they were in the programme. 
We did not care anything about any place at all. We wanted to go 
home. Homesickness was abroad in the ship — it was epidemic. If 
the authorities of New York had known how badly we had it, they 
would have quarantined us here. 

The grand pilgrimage is over. Good-bye to it, and a pleasant mem- 
ory to it, I am able to say in all kindness. I bear no malice, no ill-wiH 
toward any individual that was connected with it, either as passenger oi 



440 The Innocents Abroad 

officer- Things I did not like at all yesterday I like very well to-day, 
now that I am at home, and always hereafter I shall be able to poke fun 
at the whole gang if the spirit so moves me to do, without ever saying a 
malicious word. The expedition accomplished all that its programme 
promised that it should accomplish, and we ought all to be satisfied 
with the management of the matter, certainly. Bye-bye ! 

Mark Twain. 

I call that complimentary. It /^ complimentary; 
and yet I never have received a word of thanks for 
it from the Hadjis ; on the contrary, I speak nothing 
but the serious truth when I say that many of them 
even took exceptions to the article. In endeavoring 
to please them I slaved over that sketch for two 
hours, and had my labor for my pains. T never 
will do a generous deed again. 



CONCLUSION. 

1y I EARLY one year has flown since this notable 
S^ pilgrimage was ended; and as I sit here at 
home in San Francisco thinking, I am moved to 
confess that day by day the mass of my memories 
of the excursion have grown more and more pleasant 
as the disagreeable incidents of travel which encum- 
bered them flitted one by one out of my mind -— 
and now, if the Quaker City were weighing her 
anchor to sail away on the very same cruise again, 
nothing could gratify me more than to be a passen- 
ger. With the same captain and even the same pil- 
grims, the same sinners. I was on excellent terms 
with eight or nine of the excursionists (they are my 
staunch friends yet), and was even on speaking terms 
with the rest of the sixty-five. 1 have been at sea 
quite enough to know that that was a very good 
average. Because a long sea-voyage not only brings 
out all the mean traits one has, and exaggerates 
them, but raises up others which he never suspected 
he possessed, and even creates new oneSc A twelve 
months' voyage at sea would make an ordinary man 
a very miracle of meanness. On the other hand, if 

(441) 



442 The Innocents Abroad 

a man has good qualities, the spirit seldom moves 
him to exhibit them on shipboard, at least with any 
sort of emphasis. Now I am satisfied that our 
pilgrims are pleasant old people on shore; I am 
also satisfied that at sea on a second voyage they 
would be pleasanter, somewhat, than they were on 
our grand excursion, and so I say without hesitation 
that I would be glad enough to sail with them 
again. I could at least enjoy life with my handful 
of old friends. They could enjoy life with theif 
cliques as well — passengers invariably divide up into 
cliques, on all ships. 

And I will say, here, that I would rather travel 
with an excursion party of Methuselahs than have to 
be changing ships and comrades constantly, as peo- 
ple do who travel in the ordinary way. Those 
latter are always grieving over some other ship they 
have known and lost, and over other comrades whom 
diverging routes have separated from them. They 
learn to love a ship just in time to change it for 
another, and they become attached to a pleasant 
traveling companion only to lose him. They have 
that most dismal experience of being in a strange 
vessel, among strange people who care nothing 
about them, and of undergoing the customary bully- 
ing by strange officers and the insolence of strange 
servants, repeated over and over again within the 
compass of every month. They have also that 
other misery of packing and unpacking trunks — of 
running the dist^-essing gauntlet of custom-houses—- 



The Innocents Abroad 443 

of the anxieties attendant upon getting a mass of 
baggage from point to point on land in safety. I 
had rather sail with a whole brigade of patriarchs 
than suffer so. We never packed our trunks but 
twice — when we sailed from New York, and when 
we returned to it. Whenever we made a land jour- 
ney, we estimated how many days we should be 
gone and what amount of clothing we should needj 
figured it down to a mathematical nicety, packed a 
valise or two accordingly, and left the trunks od 
board. We chose our comrades from among our 
old, tried friends, and started. We were never 
dependent upon strangers for companionship. We 
often had occasion to pity Americans whom we 
found traveling drearily among strangers with no 
friends to exchange pains and pleasures with 
Whenever we were coming back from a land jour 
ney, our eyes sought one thing in the distance first 
— the ship — and when we saw it riding at anchot 
Avith the flag apeak, we felt as a returning wanderer 
feels when he sees his home. When we stepped on 
board, our cares vanished, our troubles were at an 
end — for the ship was home to us. We always had 
the same familiar old stateroom to go to, and feel 
safe and at peace and comfortable again. 

I have no fault to find with the manner in which 
our excursion was conducted. Its programme was 
faithfully carried out — a thing which surprised me, 
for great enterprises usually promise vastly more 
than they perform. It would be well if such ar 



444 The Innocents Abroad 

excursion could be gotten up every year and the 
system regularly inaugurated. Travel is fatal to 
prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and 
many of our people need it sorely on these ac- 
counts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of mea 
and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one 
little corner of the earth all one*s lifetime. 

The excursion is ended, and has passed to its 
place among the things that were. But its varied 
scenes and its manifold incidents will linger pleas- 
antly in our memories for many a year to come. 
Always on the wing, as we were, and merely paus- 
ing a moment to catch fitful glimpses of the wonders 
of half a world, we could not hope to receive or 
retain vivid impressions of all it was our fortune to 
see. Yet our holiday flight has not been in vain — 
for above the confusion of vague recollections, cer- 
tain of its best prized pictures lift themselves and 
will still continue perfect in tint and outline after 
their surroundings shall have faded away. 

We shall remember something of pleasant France j 
and something also of Paris, though it flashed upon 
us a splendid meteor, and was gone again, we 
hardly knew how or where. We shall remember, 
always, how we saw majestic Gibraltar glorified with 
the rich coloring of a Spanish sunset and swimming 
In a sea of rainbows. In fancy we shall see Milan 
again, and her stately cathedral with its marble 
wilderness of graceful spires. And Padua —- Verona 
— -ComOy jeweled with stars; and patrician Venice^ 




rtis Innocents Abroad 445 

afloat on ^er stagnant flood — ^ silent, desolate, 
haughty — scon? ful of her humbled state — vi rap- 
ping herself in memories of her lost fleets, of battle 
and triumph, and all the pageantry of a glory that 
js departed 

We cannot forget Florence — Naples — nor the 
foretaste oi* heaven that is in the delicious atmosphere 
of Greece — and surely not Athens and the broken 
temples of the Acropolis^ Surely not venerable 
Rome — nor the green plain that compasses her 
round about, contrasting its brightness with her gray 
decay — nor llie ruined arches that stand apart in 
the plain and t.lothe their looped and windowed rag- 
gedness with i'ines. We shall remember St. Peter's; 
not as one iees it when he walks the streets of 
Rome and fincies all her domes are just alike, but 
as he sees it leagues away, when every meaner 
edifice has faded out of sight and that one dome 
looms superbly up in the flush of sunset, full of 
dignity and grace, strongly outlined as a moun- 
tain. 

We shall remember Constantinople and the Bos- 
porus — the colossal magnificence of Baalbec — the 
Pyramids of Egypt ^ — the prodigious form, the benig- 
nant countenance of the Sphynx — Oriental Smyrna 
— sacred Jerusalem — Damascus, the ** Pearl of the 
East,** the pride of Syria, the fabled Garden of 
Eden, the home of princes and genii of the Arabian 
Nights, the oldest metropolis on earth, the one city 
m all the world that has kept its name and held it? 



44<S Tlie Innocents ADroaa 

pJace and looked serenely on whila the Kingdomf 
and -Empires of four thousand ye^'u^ have risen tr 
life, c'i^'oyed their little season of ^>rid€ and pofnp» 
dtrd then vanished and been forgotten ' 



LEFe'25 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Sept. 2009 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



